Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n
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A37363
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A Seasonable advice to all true Protestants in England, in this present posture of affairs discovering the present designs of the papists : with other remarkable things, tending to the peace of the church, and the security of the Protestant relion [sic] / by a sincere lover of his King and countrey.
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M. D.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing D63; ESTC R18433
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50,826
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67
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to us in your Religious Worship as your Consciences will suffer you endeavour to assist at Prayers and if you can have no Devotion inwardly however express outwardly that respect that is due to your God whom we adore Whatever you pretend I cannot think any of you so extraordinary mistaken as to think that a Crime which we reckon a Duty and so Superstitious as to scruple at an attendance with us in our Service of God If therefore you be willing to attain to a freedom from all those niceties and fears be frequent at the publick Prayers of the Church If you cannot at first have any Devotion this frequentation will soon bring you to a right relish of those Petitions and that way of Worship and the sooner if you will observe the motions of the Body enjoyned in the Common-Prayer for this submission and this custom will have a speedy influence upon your minds and cause your Souls to joyn in the same respects to God Certain it is that the nearness of relation between the Soul and the Body will beget a mutual compliance between the Actions of the one and the Affections of the other so that the often practising of things must needs reconcile us to those performances and remove the strongest prejudices which are not grounded in reason nor strengthned by Divine Revelation nor any worldly interest which in this cause ought to have no hand If therefore any weak Brother cannot at present comply with the Devotions of the Church of England if he finds an inward repugnancy for our publick Prayers which hinders him from receiving that benefit and comfort thereby intended Let him follow and try my advice but a few months let him force his Body to observe all the motions of respect commanded in the Rubrick let him stand up when we give glory to God and sing forth his praises let him kneel in Prayer and outwardly observe a due Reverence and he shall find that his former aversion will insensibly wear away and by degrees he will bring his Soul to a hearty and Religious compliance with our godly Forms of Prayer which before he could never use with any satisfaction to his mind He shall find his unhappy humor of discontent evaporate it self and his Body draw after the Soul and its faculties to a sincere worshipping of our good God in the manner that is practised amongst us This and many other directions to this same purpose I recommend to your perusal my Brethren who are willing to be cured of all prejudice against our Church and Worship you shall find them in my Christians Devotions and Directory now in the Press However I would advise you for your own and the Churches Peace to draw as near as you can to us and be frequent in the offering up of the Prayers of the Church for this propinquity will both acquaint you with the innocency of our practices and free you from all those idle and needless apprehensions of sin which a distance from us begets and nourishes in your minds Many other Seasonable Advices I could give you to the same purpose but the compendiousness of this Tract suffers me not to enlarge If you were desirous of a reconciliation there are ways to be found out to bring us all together And though we stand at such a distance and entertain such unreasonable animosities against one anothers persons and practices I dare engage to offer to you my Brethren such proposals as may agree with most of your Conscriences and with the honour of our Church and the Majesty of our Laws with a little mitigation Our Governors no doubt will be willing to embrace such amongst you as lead a good Life and to encourage your Conformity by all possible means Neglect not this motion but answer it with a Christian compliance You shall find us all both Clergy and People ready to receive you for we have in this Nation such Worthy Wise Learned and Christian Rulers in the Church as no Nation can shew the like nor was ever our Church better furnished with able Divines skill'd in all kind of Learning nor more remarkable for their Wisdom Piety and Moderation You shall find our Bishops for the Publick Peace of the Church ready to condescend to your weakness in all such things as shall agree with their Consciences the honour and good of the Church and the preservation of his Majesties Authority This Nation was never blessed with a more merciful mild and more gracious Prince more willing to be govern'd by Law and Reason an Enemy of blood and violence You see that he bears with your infirmities suffers you to take that liberty in matters of Religion which the severity of the Law condemns His goodness and excellent disposition is an invitation to you Abuse not his Royal Favors to your own prejudice and the publick wrong Let his Reign be Blessed with an accommodation of those differences which have involved us already in unspeakable Miseries and woful Tragedies Some of our Governors need not be advised to a Christian moderation and a kind reception of the weak Brethren This Noble and Seasonable Vertue hath gained the greatest part of considerable Towns to Conformity and won them the esteem of all their people The present Bishop of Bath and Wells by a kind and generous behaviour hath done much good in Taunton amongst the Nonconformists For though it is not safe to comply with Schism and Faction by falling away from our Duty and the observance of the Laws there is a wise behaviour in requiring obedience with meekness and Christian complacency which prevails more upon the minds of men than that furious zeal which would have fire to come down from Heaven upon all opposers I dare ingage to you my Non-Conforming Brethren if you will discover the least forwardness to this blessed Union All the Bishops Clergy and good People of the Land will rejoyce and that such conditions shall be granted to you which Reason Conscience and your own Interest will require you to accept O that you would therefore all desire and seek for this Union with us in Gods Holy Worship and thereby secure the publick Peace of the Church the prosperity of your King and Country from all wicked attempts of Barbarous Enemies O that you would but prefer this your interest of your Soul and Body and the indispensable obligations to the Laws to your own unadvised phancies or the jealousies of blinded and deluded Consciences I shall therefore conclude this Seasonable Advice with an Address to you the Chief Leaders and Teachers of these our Brethren CHAP. VI. An Exhortation to all the Learned Pious and Christian Teachers amongst our Non-Conforming Brethren to prevent in time the Nations ruin by an Vnity with us and to lay aside all Prejudice and Partiality WE look upon many of you to be men of great Learning and Exemplary Piety some of you by your Religious Works have gained an esteem amongst all the Reformed
Churches your Lives are said to be answerable to your Doctrines Many are enlightned Mr. Baxter's Works instructed and persuaded from sin by your Teaching as therefore a Roman said of a good man on the contrary side Vtinam I could repeat the word a thousand times Vtinam noster esses would to God that you and we were but one would to God that you would joyn with us and be persuaded to unite in one Religion and Worship The multitudes that throng at your Assemblies look upon you also to be men that make Conscience of your ways By your Preaching they see that you are not ignorant of the Holy Scriptures and of the Revealed Will of God What can they conclude from hence and your abhorrency of us but that you must be more quick-sighted than they are to spy an Error in our Worship and Prayers something of Idolatry and unlawful to practise which causes you to separate from us for fear of a defilement I know several persons that this consideration alone hath prejudiced so far against us that they have told me and cannot be persuaded to the contrary that there must needs be something of Superstition in our Church for otherwise so many Learned men would never stand at such a distance from us others have cast all the fault upon your Consciences as if your Consciences my Reverend Brethren were to be blinded and mistaken in so plain and clear a business What is free for me to practise some have said to me it may be other mens Consciences cannot allow Your pious behaviour and good lives in the eyes of the world strengthens them in this charitable opinion of you and sinister opinion of us and of our Church so that they look upon us as formalists temporisers men-pleasers worldlings and our Rulers as Persecutors to Enact those just Laws which tend to the preservation of the Nations Peace and Honour For Gods sake begin now to undeceive them suffer not your people to continue for ever in their dangerous mistakes which nourishes envy hatred malice displeasure and keeps them in that hainous and crying Sin before God Schism which caused once the Earth to open her infernal jaws to devour the first Authors of it alive Numbers xvi Your Danger I conceive is greater than theirs for all the sins that they are guilty of by their separation and the vices nourished in them by this division will be charged upon you by our great Judge at the last Tribunal And why will you load your selves with other mens Crimes Have you not miscarriages enough of your own to Answer for Were it not for you and your Religious Carriage all your people would be easily persuaded to listen to Reason and their Duty to the Church But as you have hitherto kept up the Faction for Reasons that we may chance to be ignorant of Now let me tell you that you indanger both the Bodies and the Souls the present and the future interest of your Congregations If you will yet stifly refuse a Compliance and an Union with us your Brethren You see the condition of this Nation the malice and designs of our Enemies the danger that hangs over our heads you see what advantage our divisions in Religion are likely to give them how they endeavour to keep us asunder and laugh at our follies and needless dissensions why will you befriend the Pope and his Papists why will you yield them your assistance and employ your Gifts and Talents to advance Popery amongst us and ruin your People and their Posterity Don't you think that these quarrels between Protestants have increased the number of Atheists and Papists It hath been the usual reason employed by their Jesuits to delude poor Souls into their Damnable Religion to tell them that we amongst our selves were not well agreed what Religion to chuse and that those of the Reformed Religion were always jangling about Fundamentals And how many prophane and loose persons have been glad to catch at this occasion to excuse themselves from observing the Laws of God Besides consider what danger those poor Souls are in that are your auditors whom though their conversation is plausible before men the Devil holds fast by those stroug bands of iniquity prejudice pride singularity hatred envy schism c. and drags to Eternal damnation without Repentance and the Merits of a good Saviour Open your Eyes therefore my Beloved Brethren look to your own your Congregations the Nations and the publick danger and the Lord of his Mercy open your Hearts to have some compassion of them and your selves that you may bring a speedy remedy to these distempers in the Church which will never be cured withou you I commend the Jesuits in China for their wisdom and discretion in complying and joyning with the Protestant Merchants in all Duties of Religion and they with the Jesuits in the parts of Gods Worship which are lawful however they abstain from all Disputes and Quarrels about Christian Religion before the Brahmans and the Heathens lest that the differences in Religion might not appear to them and hinder their embracing Christianity Cannot we observe the same policy we have much more reason than they our differences are not considerable Cease therefore to canton your selves and keep up your Factions Why will you for worldly interest or any carnal end bring Christs Church in England to utter ruin If you cannot be sensible of the Nations danger by that which I have already represented Consider that in the late hurly burly in the West upon a false Alarm of the French being landed upon the Coast of Dorset-shire some of the fiercest Presbyterians and Independents or such at least as pretended that Religion to excuse themselves from an attendance upon the Publick Ordinance had combined together to plunder the Houses of Rich Ministers Gentlemen and Wealthy Farmers if there had been any Truth in the Invasion My Reverend Brethren I beseech you for the Lords sake consider seriously this particular that will discover to you the present dispositions of our dissenting Brethren and the future dangers of their Dividing from our Church Animosity is increased to that height in their Souls that the Blessed Rules of the Gospel are not regarded that the Laws Human and Divine will be trampled under foot that Plunder Robberies and Massacres will be the end of your teaching many of them not to joyn with us I cannot think that any of you will approve of such wickednesses as these yet these you may see to be the fruits of our Divisions in frivolous matters of Religion I know your zealous Teaching hath had better effects upon more Conscientious Souls but under the Skirts of your Sects you know many Hypocrits and Villains shroud themselves to act their evil purposes under a more plausible Covert Harbor not such Enemies as these encourage them not in their dissenting from us but lead them by your Examples and Teaching at least to an Obedience to our Laws and Government in the Church and State and to an outward Conformity to the Worship of our God amongst us according to St. Pauls Exhortation to you in the Second of his Epistle to the Philippians If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies Fulfil ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind THE END