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A51393 A modest advertisement concerning the present controversie about church-government wherein the maine grounds of that booke, intituled The unlawfulnesse and danger of limited prelacie, are calmly examined. Morley, George, 1597-1684. 1641 (1641) Wing M2793; ESTC R23329 10,150 23

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A MODEST ADVERTISEMENT CONCERNING The present CONTROVERSIE about Church-Government Wherein the maine Grounds of that Booke intituled The Vnlawfulnesse and Danger of Limited Prelacie Are calmly examined LONDON Printed for Robert Bostock Anno 1641. A MODEST ADVERTISEMENT CONCERNING The present CONTROVERSIE about Church-Government THe blessed Apostle Saint Paul writing to Timothy Bishop of the Church of Ephesus as is confessed by all Writers though in this last age of the world it is at length disputed what the meaning of that word Bishop is among many instructions that hee gives him concerning the direction of the Presbyters and People committed to his care begins first with this Exhortation that Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of thankes be made for all men for Kings and for all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty Teaching us thereby both that all Government is the Ordinance of God and that it is an effect of his great love to his children to be placed in such a State where temporall peace and true Religion are so joyned together that they are not put upon the fiery Triall to lose the contentment of this life to attaine the happinesse of that which is to come Neither is this onely a great blessing of Almighty God but a duty also that belongs both to our care and wisedome and even to our Piety and Devotion it selfe to indevour as much as in us lies to preserve a quiet and a peaceable life together with all godlinesse and honesty This therefore seemes to me to be the end that all religious Prudence ought to aime at that men be not in their consultations so mis-led either by some appearances of godlinesse and faire colours of extraordinary zeale as thereby to hazzard the disturbance of the publick quiet nor on the other side so wedded to the enjoying of their temporall good as to neglect the attaining of that which is eternall This foundation being laid let us apply it to the Controversie now in hand and so eagerly pursued by those who are swayed by different Interests and Opinions concerning the retaining or amending or totall changing of Ecclesiasticall Government And first let mee have leave to propose a few Questions to those who so earnestly desire a totall change and to bring a new face of things into the Church of England Of which I humbly desire them that they will as in the presence of the Lord consider with all godly Wisedome Passion and Prejudice being laid aside and then make answer with truth and sobriety First therefore Is the Discipline already established so ill that they who live under it are not capable of salvation May they not enjoy the vertues of Faith and Hope and Charity and Humility and repentance from dead works May they not be justified and sanctified in this Church of ours Are they inforced by it to any Action which is in it selfe a sin or to omit any work in it selfe very good If so certainely those great Lights of our Reformation have beene in a great darknesse and those our Episcopall Martyrs who have laid downe their lives for the love of Truth have beene exceeding miserable Secondly the Discipline they so much desire in stead of it are they all agreed of it what it shall be Or if they be is it of Divine or Humane institution If of Divine can this be plainly proved out of the holy Scriptures And shall the sense of the places thence alledged be made evident and necessary by true Logicall inference not to perverse gain-sayers but to such as seeke for truth with indifferency and sincerity Or if the sense be probable only is it such a sense as is countenanced by all holy and learned Writers through all ages of the Church Or is it a late sense acknowledged by all Protestant Churches Or by some onely and by others accounted to have little probability Or is there any place of Scripture that will not admit of a sense which to some men will appeare probable especially if they bee ingaged by Faction or interest Lastly is their Discipline commanded plainly by God upon paine of Damnation or the contrary plainly forbidden For so it must be if it be unlawfull as is pretended for nothing is unlawfull in Divinity but what is against some Divine Law And the Episcopall Discipline being already in possession is it not just and equall that the arguments brought against it be much more convincing than those that are brought for it seeing Possession it selfe is one reason why it should continue For though those Principles which are laid for proving the unlawfulnesse of limited Episcopacy were granted namely that All Officers in Gods House must be of Gods institution That man can no more make the Office than give the Grace but That the Institution of the Office must proceed from Him that gives the blessing to the work For these are the maine grounds of that Booke concerning the unlawfulnesse of limited Prelacy which is written with much Art Eloquence to insinuate into unwary Readers I say if these Propositions were granted the sense of them will be but this That none may administer the Sacraments impose hands preach the Word nor use the Keyes but such as Christ himselfe hath appointed to doe so And that it is otherwise practised in the Church of England is not yet proved and when it is proved may easily be amended without noise or scandall But that among these who are by Christ enabled to execute Duties some may not be higher and some lower during life is the thing that is required to be proved out of plaine Texts of Scripture or sound grounds of uncontroverted Divinity when this is done this Controversie will be ended But it will be required also that the same proofes be brought for the whole Discipline and every part of it which shall be established In the meane time many places of Scripture are alledged by those who maintaine Episcopacie and these places are interpreted not by a few late Writers in a little spot of the World here in the West but by all Christian Writers since the time of the Apostles for fifteene hundred yeeres and by the agreeable concurrent practice of all Churches in Europe Asia and Africa though flowing from different fountaines and having beene founded by severall Apostles which alone shewes the Order to be Apostolicall and that as the Creed for Doctrine so this for Practice was delivered from the beginning So that the proofes of it are all Ages of the Church divers Empires very many Kingdomes in which there are many Provinces whereof some one is bigger than Scotland and the Netherlands and those parts of France in which the Presbyteriall Discipline is accepted and above a thousand Bishopricks many of which were the Chaires of the Apostles Disciples and other Saints in Scripture among different Sects of Christians that are of severall Communions and received this Order from severall beginnings not