Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
opinion_n	church_n	doctrine_n	error_n	2,045	5	7.2142	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B04528	The lavvfulnes of hearing the publick ministers of the Church of England proved, by Mr. Philip Nye and Mr. John Robinson, two eminent Congregational divines. Together with the judgment of Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Owen, and other independents, as well ancient as modern, concerning forms of prayer, parish-churches, and communion with them: and the judgment of other nonconformists about kneeling at the sacrament.	Nye, Philip, 1596?-1672.; Robinson, John, 1575?-1625.	1683 (1683)	Wing N1496; ESTC R203023	37,350	46

loseth them in all the rest and therefore if a Man do take what is good of all sides he is apt to lose them all but he pleaseth Christ by it and so will I for this particular Dr. Owen pag. 177. of Evangelical Love saith That it is pleaded indeed the Substance of the Worship of God ought to be no other than what Jesus Christ hath appointed yet the Manner and Mode of performance of what he doth command with other Rites and Ceremonies for Order and Decency may lawfully be instituted by the Rulers of the Church let it therefore at present be granted says he that so they may be by them who are perswaded of the lawfulness of those Modes and of the things wherein they consist Indeed he very much condemns Communion with such Apostatical Churches who are guilty of Idolatry and require unscriptural Terms of Communion but what Churches those are remains to be proved I am sure he asserts that many Errors in Doctrine Disorders in Sacred Administrations irregular walking in Conversation with neglect and abuse of Discipline in Rulers may fall out in some Churches and yet not evacuate their Church-State or give sufficient warrant for any Person to leave their Communion and to separate from them Pag. 76. Evang. Love And pag. 176. We wholly deny that the Mistakes of Christians in joining themselves unto such Churches as have no warrantable Institution ought to be any cause of the diminishing of our Love towards them for they may be Persons born of God united to Christ partakers of the Spirit and belong to the Church Catholick Mystical which is the first principal Object of all Christian Love and Charity notwithstanding their Errors and Wandrings from the Truth in this Matter And the said Dr. Owen who in his Discourse of the Work of the Spirit in Prayer writes against the making or composing of Forms of Prayer for our selves to be used privately desires the Reader p. 200. to observe that he doth not argue against Forms of Prayer as unlawful to be used And pag. 222. he grants that Men or Churches may agree upon a prescribed Form by common consent as judging and avowing it best for their own Edification Again pag. 228. Whether they are approved or disapproved of God whether they are lawful or unlawful we do not consider but only whether they are for Spiritual Benefit and Advantage for the good of our own Souls and the Edification of others as set up in competition with the Gift before described So that it seems the Doctor doth not judg such Forms of Prayer unlawful which are for the good of our own Souls and the Edification of others and which are not in competition with the Gift before described And therefore p. 231 232. supposing that those who make use of and plead for Forms of Prayer especially in Publick do in a due manner prepare themselves for it by holy meditation with an endeavour to bring their Souls into a holy frame of Fear delight and reverence of God let it also be supposed that they have a good End and Design in the Worship they address themselves unto namely the Glory of God and their own Spiritual Advantage the Prayers themselves tho they should be in some things irregular may give occasion to exercise those Acts of Grace which they were otherwise prepared for And I say yet further that whilst these Forms of Prayer are cloathed with the general Notions of Prayer that is are esteemed as such in the minds of them that use them are accompanied in their use with the Motives and Ends of Prayer express no Matter unlawful to be insisted on in Prayer directing the Souls of Men to none but lawful Objects of Divine Worship and Prayer the Father Son and Holy Spirit and whilst Men make use of them with the true design of Prayer looking after due assistance unto Prayer I do not judg there is any such Evil in them as that God will not communicate his Spirit to any in the use of them so as that they should have no holy Communion with him in and under them Much less will I say that God never therein regards their Persons or rejects their praying as unlawful For the Persons and Duties of Men may be accepted with God when they walk and act in sincerity according to their Light tho in many things and those of no small importance sundry Irregularities are found both in what they do and in the manner of doing it Where Persons walk before God in their Integrity and practise nothing contrary to their Light and Conviction in his Worship God is merciful unto them altho they order not every thing according to the Rule and Measure of the Word So was it with them who came to the Passover in the days of Hezekiah They had not cleansed themselves but did eat the Passover otherwise than it was written 2 Chron. 30.18 And p. 235. he grants That such Forms of Prayer have not any intrinsecal Evil in the composition of them but argues against the setting up and prescribing such Forms of Prayer universally in opposition and unto the exclusion of free Prayer And p. 236. If they appear not contrary unto or inconsistent with or are not used in a way exclusive of that Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer which we have described from the Scripture nor are reducible to any Divine Prohibition I shall not contend with any about them Much more might have been collected even out of the Writings of the Congregational Ministers concerning these weighty Matters but this is sufficient I know the Reader will be sollicitous to know their Judgment about the Lord's Supper and kneeling thereat but I must confess at present I cannot find they say any thing particularly about it only the practice of some of them in receiving the Sacrament according to the manner of the Church of England does evince that all of them do not deny the lawfulness of it but that they may sometimes communicate there tho ordinarily they do with their own particular Churches for better-Edification as they judg Mr. Tombs a learned Minister and a great Anabaptist wrote a Book to prove it lawful both to Hear and Communicate with the Church of England and his practice at Salisbury was conformable thereunto Indeed the Nonconformists that are called Presbyterians both Ancient and Modern do generally allow the lawfulness of Communicating with the Church of England tho at the same Time they held the Ceremonies to be burthen some and therefore would avoid them if they could but if they could not have the Sacrament otherwise they took it as they could have it Thus says Mr. Baxter in his Christian Directory pag. 859. First Edition Had I my choice I would receive the Lord's Supper sitting but where I have not I will use the Gesture which the Church useth And it is to be noted that the Church of England requireth the Communicants only to receive it kneeling but not to eat and drink it kneeling when they have received it And his Resolution of this Case ought to be considered viz. Quest May the Communion-Tables be turned Altar-wise and railed in And is it lawful to come up to the Rails to Communicate Answ 1. God hath given us no particular Command or Prohibition about these Circumstances but the general Rules for Unity Edification Order and Decency Whether the Table should stand this way or that way here or there c. he hath not particularly determined 2. They that turn the Table Altar-wise and rail it in out of a design to draw Men to Popery or in a scandalous way which will encourage Men to or in Popery do sin 3. So do they that rail in the Table to signify that the Vulgar or Lay-Christians must not come to it but be kept at a distance when Christ in his Personal Presence admitted his Disciples to communicate at the Table with himself 4. But where there are no such Ends but only to imitate the Ancients that did thus and to shew reverence to the Table on the account of the Sacrament by keeping away Dogs keeping Boys from sitting on it c. The professed Doctrine of the Church condemneth Transubstantiation the real Corporal Presence c. as ours doth In this Case Christians should take these for such as they are indifferent things and not censure or condemn each other for them nor should any inforce them on any that think them unlawful 5. And to Communicate is not only lawful in this Case where we cannot prove that the Minister sinneth but even when we suspect an evil Design in him which we cannot prove yea or when we can prove that his personal Interpretation of the Place Name Situation and Rails is unsound for we assemble there to communicate in and according to the professed Doctrine of Christianity and the Churches and our own open Profession and not after every private Opinion and Error of the Minister As I may receive from an Anabaptist or Separatist notwithstanding his Personal Errors so may I from another Mans whose Error destroyeth not his Ministry nor the Ordinance as long as I consent not to it yea and with the Church profess my dissent 6. Yet caeteris paribus every free Man that hath his choice should chuse to Communicate rather where there is most Purity and least Error than with those that swerve more from regular Exactness FINIS

is sufficient to my Conscience that God hath not so joyned them Our actings and the reasons or grounds of them are not to be interpreted in Church-Matters by Humane Laws If they were it would be difficult to inhabit in some Common-wealths with a good Conscience Our living within the Precincts of such a Parish our Laws interpret a being of the same particular Church with them for all Church-Ordinances but this being Mans Law only we judge our selves not so necessarily involved by our habitation A Church according to Scripture is a Spiritual Body The Limits are part of the essence and constitution of such a Body and therefore ought to be Spiritual and of the same nature and not meerly humane as is the division of Parishes Answ 3. To speak more properly we cannot say nearness by an external disposition of things connexeth them any more than Unity makes kindred or of one Blood No it must be where there is such a dependency of things that the being at leastwise the orderly being of the one is not without the other In this Sense Baptizing breaking of Bread and other Ordinances that relate to and necessarily depend on an Office and connexed with it and so our being called thereunto and invested therein and if the person with whom I partake be either not in such an Office or in any apparent disorderly way I partake with his Sin so near are these Duties related in their orderly Administration But Preaching in a Providential way as by Persons gifted and out of their Charity administring to us or by Provision of the Magistrate is altogether of another nature And though Ordination and Preaching be joyned together in the vulgar esteem yet it 's not the voice or sanction of Man can bring things into a nearer Relation than the Spirit hath set them Object 3. Why may we not as well go to Common-Prayer Answ If there were no other things to be objected against those Prayers but Ordination Conformity or other Sins of the Minister's questionless we may for we question not to joyn with them in Prayer before or after Sermon more than with his Preaching Object 4. Where there is any better Preaching than Ordinary especially in the City it is so thronged as by that time Prayers are ended there is no hearing Answ It is one thing to abstain upon such an account which is prudential only as upon the account of bodily infirmity another thing to abstain upon the opinion of unlawfulness Now the thing contended for is to vindicate the Lawfulness of hearing such Ministers notwithstanding what hath been objected to the contrary and to deliver us from an Error of very ill consequence for this Opinion that it is unlawful to hear such Ministers as have been spoken of is an error of very ill consequence in many respects 1. It puts us upon such singularity as by which we divide in our practice not only from our Brethren of the Presbyterian perswasion but likewise from divers of the soberest Separatists Where a good Conscience necessitates as in many things to differ from other Godly Brethren on each hand it is a sad Providence to have these differences increased by an erronious Conscience 2. Except it be the reading of Scriptures this Ordinance alone of all other publick Ordinances amongst us hath by the good hand of God been kept and continued by our National Establishment free in it self from all disputable Mixtures and Impositions and the benefit and fruit of this Publick Ministry hath accordingly been visibly great as in any part of the World Let us fear therefore lest we our selves now by raising groundless scruples lay this as low as others by their unwarrantable additions have done the other Publick Ordinances 3. In most of the misperswasions of these latter times by which Mens Minds have been corrupted I find in whatsoever otherwise they differ one from another yet in this they agree that its unlawful to hear in Publick Which I am perswaded is one constant design of Satan in the variety of ways in Religion he hath set on Foot by Jesuites amongst us Let us therefore be the more aware of whatsoever tends that way 4. Such reasonings against Hearing though they convince not the unlawfulness of it yet they leave such prejudices in the minds of them which are tender as perplex and render Hearing less profitable and edifying even to those that are perswaded of its Lawfulness To bring the lawfulness of known Ordinances under dispute for some circumstances affixed hath even been of great advantage to Satan whether in such disputes he prevails or not For Men are either beaten wholly off from the duty or perform it with a more remiss and unsutable Spirit which lieth more directly in the way to prevent a blessing than the evils of others we ordinarily object Those disputes about the Morality of the Sabbath as they have prevailed with many to a total neglect so with more to a remiss observance though convinced of it as a moral Duty If for substance the Duty be so evident as not to be liable to a dispute in it self as this of Hearing is then Satan fastens Scruples about Circumstances which prevailing we have as little benefit from the Ordinance or Duty as if it were not The end of Mr. Nye's Reasons touching the lawfulness of hearing the Publick Ministers ADVERTISEMENT TO stop the Mouths of many especially those Ministers that continually from Press and Pulpit do maliciously as well as ignorantly tell the People that the Dissenters especially Independents and Anabaptists do act contrary to their own Principles in Communicating sometimes with the Church of England and that they do so meerly to qualifie themselves for an Office to serve a Turn as they spitefully phrase it or to save themselves from the penal Laws I have here inserted in what follows the Opinion not only of the Independents but even the Brownists themselves many years since about this matter VIZ. A TREATISE of the Lawfulness of Hearing the Publick Ministers in the Church of England Penned by that Learned and Reverend Divine Mr. JOHN ROBINSON late Pastor to the English Church of God at Leyden Printed there in the Year 1634 and now published for Publick Satisfaction AS they that affect alienation from others make their differences as great and the adverse Opinion or Practice as odious as they can thereby to further their desired victory over them and to harden themselves and their side against them So on the contrary they who desire peace and accord both interpret things in the best part that reasonably they can and seek how and where they may find any lawful door of entry into accord and agreement with others Of which latter number I profess my self by the Grace of God both a Companion and Guide specially in regard of my Christian Country-men to whom God hath tied me in so many inviolable bonds accounting it a Cross that I am in any particular compelled to dissent from