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nature_n faith_n grace_n justification_n 2,638 5 9.1538 5 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A43054 A discourse about edification in answer to a question, whether it is lawful for any man to forsake the communion of the Church of England, and go to the separate meetings, because he can better edifie there? Hascard, Gregory. 1683 (1683) Wing H1108; ESTC R4350 16,121 30

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may be heating of fancy stirring up of humours this or that and Men may as well define the thing they call Wit as what Edification means And therefore to desert the plain and great Duty of our Church Communion for disputable doubtful or truly mistaken Edification is to be guilty of the sin of Schism In most cases to judge what is better or best is very hard and requires a sincere and considering head and so it is in the business of better Edification which is so easily mistaken especially by the generality of the People who are usually ignorant of such nice things and prejudic'd by their Parties and Affections and are mutable and various according to their fancies For better Edification purer Administrations and Churches and things that are more excellent absolute Prefection and a less defective Way of Worship are hard to understand perplex mens minds and fill them with innumerable doubts and scruples and put them upon refining and purging so long till they weaken and destroy the Spirit of Religion And so they run themselves into a known sin for dark and disputable advantages which indeed are only mistakes and principally are these three that follow 1. In taking nice and speculative Notions for great and Edifying Truths When Doctrins have been rais'd only to please the temper of the curious and inquisitive yet have made many think their hearts were warm'd when their heads and fancies were gratifi'd And dark and obscure Discourses about Angels the state of separated Souls Colos 2. 18. and things of the like nature have made some call the Preacher high and mysterious while others teaching the way of Salvation plainly by Faith and a good Conversation have been lessen'd with the character of dull honest and moral Men fit only for Catechists and Christians of the lowest Form Tickle but their imaginations with conjectural Discourses about the situation of Paradise of old or Hell now and you are a sounder Divine than he that only draws wholsom Conclusions from Adam's prevarication to caution you against sin of the like nature or how to avoid those dismal flames where ever they are And others have been silly and phantastick in admiring those who have pratled about the length of the Sword that guarded Paradise or how the Spirits above pass Eternity away and scorn'd him who in plain methods chalkt them out the way that will lead them to Heaven 1 Tim. 1.4 The ancient Gnosticks because they made a mixture of the Jewish Fables and Genealogies of their Lilith and Behemoth and fetcht in the stories of the Gods out of Orpheus and Philistion two great Divines in the Pagan Religion into plain Christianity thought themselves the most knowing Men of the Secrets of God and Heaven and wondred how only Faith upon Jesus and keeping of the Commands could be knowing of God or Wisdom from above The wranglings of the Schools with their fine distinctions and barbarous terms sitter for Magick than Christianity by their Disciples have been priz'd for great and precious Truths And Enthusiastick Raptures and flights making once the Brain to swim have snatcht the hearers beyond themselves and then thought them the Dictates of the Spirit and the Teachings of God and the more dark and obscure the Doctrine hath been the greater illumination it was esteem'd and call'd a noon-day Thought which was a mid-night Dream Such things as these pass with too many for saving Truths a great part of Mankind being ignorant in their Heads and corrupt in their Practice espous'd to Parties and Interests having Constitutions and Passions fit for these they readily swallow them down The Apostle confirms the truth of this 2 Tim. 4. ● telling us the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves Teachers having itching ears caus'd by some disease of Vice within which is not to be cured by good Physick but only scratched and gratifi'd and and if the Food though wholsom and good be not to their Pallate and Fancy they complain of hunger and starving These and many more are the Instances of a weak and sickly nature craving only nice and curious things for Spiritual Meat and kecking at the sincere Milk of the Word plain and substantial Truths that it may grow thereby To give therefore a liberty to every Man to run from an establish'd Church upon the account of better Edification which is so often and easily mistaken is to direct Men into temptation and a snare and is dangerous and sinful and when once the gap is open where will especially the Vulgar stop May we not add that this pretence of better Edification is very sit to disguise and colour other Vices When Controversies have unhappily risen from an unjust denial of the Ministers Rights and Dues or the accidents of civil conversation they make The Ministry that was spiritual and good before to be call'd dull and mean and better must be sought elsewhere while only Revenge or Covetousness is at the bottom Wandring Reports or their own lavish Tongue and censorious Temper have call'd some Pastours Covetous or Intemperate or branded them with other Vices and then cry out they cannot Edifie in such a Church and so make one fault help out another and Defamation must excuse their Schism 2. In taking the Opinions of Parties for undoubted Truths essential to salvation When men have once wedded a Party and the Opinions peculiar to it they magnifie and propagate them grow surious for their defence and call them the best part of Religion and if these be not abetted and cry'd up by the Pastours of our Church or they differ from them in explications and distinctions of them the way of salvation is not taught they do not improve their Spiritual condition and therefore is a just cause of their separation Because the Notion or Explication of Faith and Spirit Church and Grace Justification Regeneration Conversion Adoption and other things of the like nature are generally different in our Church from those of the separation they therefore cry we destroy the saving Truths of the Gospel and instead of being Edifi'd they find themselves weakened in their Christian Faith Though 't is plain to all impartial judgments that their sense and interpretation of them by natural consequences lessen the Grace of the Gospel and give security to lazy sinners a strange sort of Edification For though our Charity is not so narrow as to think every man a vicious person who is thus mistaken in his conclusions yet however this alters not the nature of these Opinions and their consequences and who knows how far men of ill Principles do improve them Such is the perverse and angry temper of many about their own Opinions no way necessary to salvation wherein wise men and good men may differ which are not stated by Authority and may not be determin'd till Elias come yet if these be not insisted on and press'd with vehemency