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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A40712 Humble advice to the conforming and non-conforming ministers and people how to behave themselves under the present liberty / by the author of Toleration not to be abused. Fullwood, Francis, d. 1693. 1673 (1673) Wing F2508; ESTC R19538 34,515 144

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of the holy Scriptures Preaching hath obtained in the universal Church to this day Who shall question whether Preaching whereby we address to God adoring him for his mercy and truth in the Ministry of the Priests Lips be a part of divine worship I am sure the Injunctions of his present Majesty makes it part of divine Service With reference to Preaching also we have our Ordination and Institution and the Laws and Canons require it at our hands Why should our Adversaries triumph and say we are against Preaching and that we speak against it to excuse our idleness or inability are not we best known by the name of Preachers do they not by our Preaching see their most need of us do they not hence raise their value and estimation for us do what you can and spare not to recover the honour due to the Priesthood in other regards But if all the rest be lost I see no reason we should hazard this also It is said the Preachers of our Church are famous and have long been famous through the Christian World for Preaching Let no man take our Crown let us not throw it away our selves 2. I perceive also offence hath Avoid Socinianism and the suspition of it been taken of the pretended rational way of some of our Preachers both in their Preaching and Writing Though no sob●r man can doubt but that it hath been of late improved very excellently for the baffling of Popery and the shaming of Phanaticism out ●f the World But seeing the Law of Religion is twofold viz. that of Reason and revelation Phanaticism seems to be twofold also When men so adhere to Revelation as to despise Reason or so to glory in Reason as to neglect Revelation onely with this difference the first do sine Ratione and the later cum ratione insanire having the honour to run mad in the Rational way M● thinks it is safest so to use our Reason about Relig●on as not to draw the suspition either of Socinia●sme or Infidelity Admit there were neither Phanatick in ordinary s●nc● nor Papist in the World what have we gained if we have hazarded Christianity neither can I bear with so general and accommodated an account of the Christian Religion whatsoever i●s pretenses ar● as a Jew a Turk or a Pagan m●y subscribe We glory and that justly in the great Title of Ministers of the Gospel and we are set for the defense of it And what is the Gospel in strictness of Speech but the glad tidings of Salvation by Faith in the Redemption of Christ and the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost And he that seems to despise these is not more like to a Socinian then an Infidel but more like either then a Minister of the Gospel Is not Faith both in the grace and profession of it a great part of the Christian Religion or is there nothing in the object of the Christian Faith but what is Reason abstracted from Revela●ion I am not altogether ignorant of the learned attempts this way though to no great purpose I know we cannot believe and know not why yet we use to say that the Arguments inducing Faith are not taken from the nature of the Object but from the credibility or infallibility of the Author or deliverer of it And our Faith in the prime Doctrines of the Gospel is built not upon them as reasonable in themselves but upon Testimony from him that cannot deceive us According to our Catechism we say we believe in God the Father that made the World Now if Reason could have found out certainly that the World was made yet that it was made by the Word of God or by the Son of God or that things that do Heb. 11. 1. now appear were made of things which did not i. e. that all things were made out of nothing these things the Apostle you know referreth to Faith as things never to have been discovered without special Revelation Much less that those other great Articles touching the Redemption of Christ and the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost if you consider them in their Evangelical Latitude That the Second Person in the Trinity should assume the humane Nature into an Hypostatical union with it self that this nature should be conceived by the Holy Ghost born of a pure Virg●n That there is a Messias and that this is He. That he died for our sins that he rose again for our justification That he ascended to H●av●n and there sits ●n the right hand of God and that thence he shall come again to Judge the World All these are things that Reason is an utter Stranger to For great is the Mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh c. Again that there is a third Person in the Deity that this is the Holy Ghost that inspired the Divine Writers and confirm●d the Gospel by Miracles That he is sent down fr●m Heaven to convince the World to instruct and sanctifie to govern guide and comfort the Church These things we all st●dfastly believe as Evangelical Verities not discoverable by any other Light then that of divine and special Revelation I might add that Repentance it self though it be a very reasonable thing in those that have offended in order to pardon c. Yet as it is a grace of this Spirit and as it is a condition of the new Covenant it is matter of Faith and not to be discovered by Reason alone This is the Word of Faith that we ought to Preach and profess and thereby give our Testimony that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World 1 Joh. 4. 14. In this the Apostles and Primitive Martyrs were all Confessors Search Antiquity and you find all ancient Offices to have been compiled as it were for the same purpose Our Church both in her Doctrine and Worship is a great Pillar of Christianity whereon little else is written but Jesus Christ Review our Catechisme and Collects Hymns and Litany and several Creeds as well as the Offices of the Sacraments together with the reason and end of all our Festivals and particularly of the Lords day and you cannot but be confirm'd in the acknowledgment of our great profession of the Gospel of Christ Then let the World be Infidel but we that are Christians and Ministers of Christ let us joy in believing and in our places own and prosess the Gospel by Faith which we cannot comprehend by Reason Let us hold fast the Doctrine and keep close to the worship and obs●rve the Festivals of our own Church as the true Sons of it and there can be no colour for any suspicion or imputation of Socinianisme upon us The sum is notwithstanding the private opinions of some men he must needs be very weak that shall fly from the Church of England for fear of Socinianism of which none can possibly doubt that moreover read the Canons made by the Bishops and the rest of our Clergy in the Convocation of 1640.