Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	church_n	particular_a	visible_a	2,398	5	9.4237	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45122	An answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's book of The unreasonableness of separation so far as it concerns The peaceable designe : with some animadversions upon the debate between him and Mr. Baxter concerning the national church and the head of it.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.; Humfrey, John, 1621-1719. Peaceable design.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Of national churches.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Unreasonableness of separation.	1682 (1682)	Wing H3667; ESTC R28713	17,588	40

and I Judge not But I do perceive this that it hath exposed him much and that not only to such a sawcy Man as Mr. Alsop to style him This Weather-Cock but to such a serious Man as Mr. Baxter to drive him into such distress For so long I must still say as the Doctor is engaged to hold the Government of Episcopacy as it is exercised in the Church of England to be of Divine Right he must maintain also her proper Constituting Officers to be of Christs appointment and then find out a Constitutive Head of it or he is gone And seeing he cannot do this but is forced to grant there is no such Head and that there is no need of any it is plain that his Cause is lost I will sum up my Answer again The Doctor 's Determination is We deny the necessity of any such Regent Part. For a National Consent is as sufficient to make a National Church as an Universal Consent to make a Catholick Church It is well he sayes As Sufficient because That may excuse him something if neither of them be Sufficient as it appears they are not without a Head I have distinguished therefore two Consents A Consent that goes to the Making a Society or Church and a Consent for coming into the same when it is Made A Consent that goes to the Constitution and a Consent that goes to put a Man under the Administration When the Doctor Argues from the Catholick to a National Church that As an Universal Consent makes the Catholick Church So a National Consent the National Church he must not be understood to mean it of the Former Consent because there is no such Consent as that imaginable in regard to the Catholick Church There can be no coming together possibly of the Community of the whole Christian World to agree to such a Constitution The Catholick Church is not made by the consent of men but is of God's Ordination altogether Nor can he be understood of the Latter consent because a consent to be a Member of a Church or Society already Made is not that consent which goes to the Making it A consent to be a Christian or of the Church Catholick is to consent to have Christ for my Lord and Head But how a consent to have Christ for ones Head should prove that Consent makes a Church without a Head is a reasoning I am yet to understand For the former consent there is here none of it And from the latter there can be no Argument Again The Catholick Church Visible in its Nature can never be Organical It hath a Head and all the Particular Churches in the Earth are the parts of it Nay there were at first Universal Officers gifted with proper Gifts as the Gifts of Tongues sutable to such an Office But these were only to gather Particular Churches throughout the World and it never was the designe of the Head that there should be a Form of Polity introduced into an Oecumenical Society that by the Organs of Bishops Arch-Bishops Patriarchs General Councils and a Pope a Catholick Visible Government should be Administred so as to make the whole Earth a Political Church And consequently the Doctors Arguing from the Catholick to a National Church cannot be good Not only because there is no such Constitution as this by consent imaginable which I shall say principally as to the Catholick Church The True Head of this Church being not chosen by Man's consent and the False Head I hope we are never like to choose But because upon supposition that the Doctors Consent some way or other as he means did make it he must suppose this Universal Church as such to be on Earth a compleat Organized Body or he must make the National Church an In-organical Body and by either way he drops his Cause I do now wonder therefore at the Doctor what these first Apprehensions of something indeed he knew not what in his mind should mean How a man whose Parts are so great should be so slender in his Reasonings and why he should undertake the Resolution of such a Point as he is no body at at all The Doctor certainly has no reason therefore to insult over any body or contemn any and much less to Pity Mr. Baxter which Pity by interpretation is Slight Mr. Baxter is a man that is not to be Pityed nor indeed to be Envied for we usually don 't aspire to be equal to Singular persons The Doctor has his Excellencies other ways but he hath not Mr. Baxter's The Doctor 's Soul is made of Free-stone you shall have from him Polished Learning Mr. Baxter's is made of Flint you shall have from him Acute Truth It is the Flint not the Free-stone that strikes Light A quick Apprehension a d●ep Judgment a vast Invention Exquisite Notion A Pen consequently that is but turning the cock and it will run at any time a Sermon full or a Book full as he hath Occasion There is a Book I understand of his now sending out which hath been many a year in Study He is usually too sudden it is a Methodical system of Divinity fit for Students at the University I believe that many of our Episcopal-Divines will speak lightly of it but not read it For my part through his having this one Chief Work happily in Latin I rejoyce from my heart that Forreign Divines who are not yet Prejudiced as Ours are will come to know him Above all yet Mr. Baxter is a Holy Man who will be for ever greater in his own Refusing a Bishoprick than the Doctor can be in Getting one if the present ill managing of this Cause does not preclude his having any And now I could not Answer it to my self if I should leave this Discourse without returning to the Matter to make some Improvement of it From this piece of Doctrine then before wherein I wonder how the Doctor should stumble so at noon day that the Church of England is so far Erastian that She will not admit of Two Co-ordinate Powers with respect to the Church and the State of this Nation but doth choose to Own and Acknowledge the KING to be the only Head of Both we have a Dore open'd for Union which hath hardly been thought on by any of those Pious and Learned men whose Souls heretofore have so much breathed after it Archbishop Usher hath left us his Model for an Accommodation And it hath been upon the hearts generally of all Moderate Persons that a reduction of such a Government into our Church as was in in the Primitive Times when there was a Consessus Presbyterorum joyn'd with the Bishop in all his Acts of Ordination and Jurisdiction were the Way and only Effectual Way to our True Happiness and Reformation Unto which if one thing more might be Added that is If the Common-Prayer might be new Cast it being fit that such a Vessel for the Sanctuary should be all of Pure Gold so as the whole

Head When that Article was put in the Creed I Believe the Catholick Church I would ask the Doctor Whether this Distinction of Visible and Invisible was used in the World And if it was not when it arose it could not take off any thing of Christ's Headship When both Visible and Invisible were but one he must be Head of both Again there are some Learned Men deny a Catholick Church Visible The Doctor does hold it And what if they should advance against him this Argument If there be no Catholick Visible Head there is no Catholick Church Visible But there is no Catholick Visible Head The Minor is the Doctors and the Major is to be denyed of no other but the Doctor Let us proceed to the bottom We have sounded the Doctors Invention let us try his Reason There is no necessity of such a Head sayes he for a National Consent is as sufficient to make a National Church as an Universal Consent to make a Catholick Church This is the Doctors Reason It is Consent alone makes a Church or Society though it hath no Head The Consent of a Nation makes a National Church the Consent of All Christians the Catholick Church the Consent of a Particular Company a Particular Church or Congregation This is his bottom and it is something but exceeding rawly spoken Let us understand therefore where there is a company of Persons who have no power one over another that might receive mutual Advantage if United to that end such a Company are called a Community If they agree together for the obtainment of that end to come into an Order of Superiority and Inferiority that makes it a Society or Political Body If the end be for that good which is only Temporal it is called a Common-Wealth if for that which is Spiritual it is a Church The Doctor now is to be askt What Consent it is that he means If he means by his Consent the Agreement which People make at first when they enter into Society it is true that their Consent is the Foundation but the Doctor here I hope does see that this Consent is for the having a Head and Government and the pitching upon the Sort or Manner of the Government they would have which Agreement is called the Constitution It is not this Consent therefore the Doctor should mean which is not also applicable to the Catholick Church in which he Instances whose Head and Government is not of Mans Election but of the Will of God only By the way for the National Church It is true that Particular Churches in a Nation being of Divine Appointment the Pastors or Ministers who have the Rule over their Flocks In Actu Primo that is the Right of Discipline and Censure may agree to a delegating that power In Actu Secundo or the Exercise of it for Reasons of Prudence to a Superintendent called a Bishop who shall be Supervised by an Arch-Bishop and that the Arch-Bishop Bishops and Clerks chosen out of themselves met in a Convocation shall have the Power of making Laws or Canons by which they will be Governed Upon such a Consent as this here appears a Political National Church in the Constitution wherein is an Ecclesiastical Formal Constitutive Regent Part or Head over an Organical Body for the Administration and that founded upon the true Bottom upon which all rightly constituted Societies do stand the Agreement of the Community The Regent Part here is placed not in One Person which does not need but in One Corporation or United Assembly whereof the Arch-Bishop is but a chief part as the Bishops are and I would humbly ask Mr. Baxter what he thinks of it For as for the Doctor I think not him a Competent Judge not so much because he is not versed in that sort of Study as the other is but because of his departure from himself in the Prudentials of his Irenicum and being thereby now engaged to maintain the Government of our Church to be of Divine Right he must not receive this Notion which let it shew him never so clear and firm a Ground to build the same upon does make it of Human Institution If by his consent he means the consent of every Man in particular to be of such a Church or Society it is true that a Mans consent does make him a Member so as without it he could be none but the Church or Society must be supposed to be Formed before of the Ruling and Ruled Part and his Consent to be a Member is a consent to be Ruled and to own such a Head as well as to enjoy the Benefits of such a Society This Consent is the Condition upon which he hath right to be a Member it is the Ratio Fundandi of his Membership and the Condition upon which the Ruler hath Authority over him in particular when we suppose he may otherwise be at his own choice but if a Man shall fancy that this Consent does make a Church or Society as the Form that Constitutes it as they must do who suppose a Society to be Made Formed or Constituted by this Consent without a Head or the necessity of one it is such a raw injudicious indigested Conception as could have never once swum in the Thoughts of so Learned a Person if he had a faculty for beating out a Notion so good as he has for Books and negligence toward others that endeavour it It is true there is no Political Society whether Civil or Ecclesiastical but there must be Consent and Union but it is not this Consent and Union only makes it a Church or Common-Wealth A Vicinity may have Concord nay a Herd and there is Consent in a Society in Fieri not yet Organiz'd or Unform'd There is something that gives the Name and Being and makes a Society to be that which it is in specie different from others which is not I say Consent but it is an Order of Superiority and Inferiority upon Consent that does this and that is all one as to be the Form that Constitutes the Society And Consequently when I find the Doctor being at last drawn to it come to such a Determination as this about the Point that There is no necessity of a Constitutive Head because a National Consent makes a National Church I must pronounce it such a grave Nothing such a speaking Nothing with Gravity and pretence of being Wiser too than his fellows that if he do not come to be ashamed before Mr. Baxter has done with him or has reason to be so I will be exposed to shame my self for my speaking thus freely plainly and honestly as another person perhaps would not do The truth is it is pity the Doctor did declare his Heart while he was Young against the Divine Right of Episcopacy seeing he hath occasion now for another Opinion Whether out of Prudence or Conscience whether for want of more Light then or more full Light now it is God and himself knows

Neither Church or any Members of Either shall Unchurch one another and That no Man should depart from the One Church to the Other but upon a sufficient peaceable Reason under the pain of Ecclesiastical Censure They should not permit any person unlearned till come to very grave Years which are past Heat and Ostentation to Exercise in these Meetings They should decree the Doors of such Meetings to be kept open that the Magistrate may be secure against Sedition They should determine many things of such a Nature but especially that when a Man hath his choice to be of what Congregation he will in regard to Fixed Communion as he finds it most conducive to his Souls Edification yet should he be allowed and enjoyned to come Occasionally also to the Parish Meetings so far as he can in point of Conscience for the testifying his Union with the Body as the Church is National in this Kingdom And I would have persons likewise who come for their Stated Worship to the Parish Church to go sometimes to the Meetings also without scruple by the way of Occasional Communion I will here deliver my own Soul I know that the Laws of the Magistrate that are Good do Bind the Conscience but there are two Cases that Loose a Man from Obedience One is When that which is Commanded is against his Conscience and the Other is When that which is Commanded is Superseded by a Duty of greater concernment I cannot say for my part that to go to Church and hear Common-Prayer is against my Conscience though a thorough Conformity in all things on the Ministers part is like still to be so seeing the Doctor himself does shrink from a Defence of the Lawfulness of That but this I can say that when it is my duty to go to Church and my duty also to go Preach supposing I am called to one of these Meetings the leaving undone that Duty which is the Less for the doing the Other that can't be done otherwise is no Sin or Evil as I am perswaded in my Judgment And it is upon the Plea of the Greater Duty that the Peaceable Design does stand I know well how my Brethren state Their Case They will have going to Their Meetings to be for their Fixed Communion and allow Occasional Communion with the Parish Church to defend themselves from Schisme but I for my part must confess that I see not and cannot see my Defence to be so Safe unless I take the Parish Assembly where I have convenience for my Fixed Communion and my Preaching in the Meetings and the Peoples going to them to be Occasional only for our Greater or Farther Edification The Doctor therefore should indeed have taken particular Notice of this and Providing only against such Preaching to be at that time when Publick Authority requires the General Attendance otherwhere he should by giving an Approbation to such a State of Our Cause have consulted his Own both with more Judgment and with more Moderation then for ought I see he hath done or was able to do Indeed if the Scene were altered I need not be so wary If these Separate Assemblies were made Legal the Schisme presently in reference to the National Church were at an End Schisme is a Separation from that Church whereof we ought or are bound to be Members If the Supreme Authority then loose our Obligation to the Parish Meeting so that we are bound no longer the Iniquity upon that account is not to be Found and the Schisme gone It is one Act of Parliament would give a full Answer to all Mens Arguments In the mean time the Non-conformists I know have other Pleas besides One for what they do They think themselves bound in Conscience to Meet and Preach and account it Serving God and Doing their Duty The Doctor and others call it Sin and Wickedness When I Hear such Sayings therefore and Read such Books I may still bear Reverence to the Persons but I do not in my Heart care one Penny for what they say for there is a Conscience within quite above such Words They may cry This is Schism There never was such Horrible Schism as this Practise heard of before in the Christian World sayes one very serious Author whom I name not but I am not moved for all that I cannot think a Nonconformist Meeting such a Horrible Creature considering how our case in England now stands as these Church-Men generally would make it The great Bear I must count still hath been lead so long about the Streets that the very Children are no longer afraid of it Not but I am sensible of the dangerous consequence into which our Divisions may bring us but who can help it Who is the Cause of them Who is in Fault is the Question Who is it can Remedy these Terms imposed on us as necessary to Communion The Nonconformist hath no Conscience of Sin upon him in the thing and if he cannot have Peace with his Brethren of the Church upon any terms but Full Conforming it is God must be the Judg and the Bishop and Presbyterian the Doctor and Mr. Baxter shall know which of them it is that are to Blame at the Great Day And wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses The Doctor had no Need to lay out his Parts upon such a Design as that he hath under his hands Nor has he Reason I must inculcate to Despise or Scorn no nor to Slight or Neglect any body though the Meanest person There is a late Reverend Conformist for so I take him to be who in a certain Book Entituled Liberty of Conscience in its order to Universal Peace hath deserved better of us I suppose sayes he there is a Society or Societies of Christians that hold Christ the Head and the great points of Union but refuse to Ioyn in such Opinion or Practise as they conceive not Allowable by the Word of God nor can they that require their Compliance pretend on their part that the things are Absolute Necessary to make a Member of the Body of Christ In this case I say he is only the Schismatick that hath not a Love that hath no Sympathy with the Body and therefore if neither hath they must be both Schismaticks I should not fill so much room with a Quotation but that I am taken with the Genius of the Writer He is a man quite Unknown to me but he hath a fine Spirit and his Book savours of it That is so Generous so Candid so Benign towards the Dissenters as the temper is quite contrary in the Authors of the Friendly Debate the Ecclesiastical Polity and the Unreasonableness of Separation I am concern'd I must needs say that I put these three Names together Not that the Authors of either of the first Books are men of less bright Parts or that the Books have less Excellency of their kind in them than the last but because of the reason why I do it For I must confess it is a matter of real Offence to me that a man who is so Learned a man so Honoured a man throughout the Nation should prove a Proud man a Disdainful Contemptuous person Which Temper if it be Indulged is so un-endurable by God and Man that it will hurl any one into the dust And I cannot do any better Service in the Earth to this otherwise very Worthy and Excellent Doctor than to contribute the best I can to my utmost for bringing him to some Ingenuous Sense and Amendment of it And so I leave him to the World to judg who is most fit to be Pityed the Doctor himself or Mr. Baxter Thou shalt not Hate thy Brother in thy Heart but thou shalt in any wife Rebuke him and not suffer Sin upon him THE END ERRATA PAge 8. Line 11. in some of the Copies the word Last is put for First p. 26. l. 3. for shall read still p. 27. l. 18. for own read once