Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostolical_a	church_n	tradition_n	4,989	5	9.5918	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70067	A defence of the Resolution of this case viz. whether the Church of England's symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome makes it unlawfull to communion with the Church of England : in answer to a book intitiuled A modest examination of that resolution.	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1684 (1684)	Wing F1697; ESTC R14761	35,631	56

satisfie you were conformed to by our Blessed Saviour But you say Christ condemned severely the Jewish Traditions But I say he did not at all condemn all Jewish Traditions and none but such as by which they made the Commandments of God of none effect And such as they placed special Holiness in and necessary to acceptance with God as is too evident to need my standing to prove it And Sir when you can prove that our Ceremonies are like to those condemned Traditions I will undertake that our Author shall be as zealous against complying with them as he is now against separation from our Church upon the account of them But to go on whereas our Author saith of Episcopal Government and the three other following things pag. 38. That he takes it for granted that there is nothing of Viciousness or Immorality in any of them to make them Vnlawfull and therefore that they are indifferent in their own nature You reply pag. 18. That there are few things to be named unlawfull in this sense I answer there are as many things unlawfull in this sense as there are things prohibited by the Moral Law and if you please to consult our Expositors of the Decalogue I presume you 'll find those things not a few You say at the bottom of this 18th Page That it troubles you to reade your Author saying I know not how our Brethren will defend the Apostolical Institution of the Observation of the Lord's day while they contend that this of Episcopacy cannot be concluded from the uninterrupted Tradition of the Catholique Church c. And why I pray Sir doth this trouble you You give this reason why viz. Because certainly for the Apostolical practice in the Observation of the Lord's day we have the infallible evidence of Holy Scripture Acts 20. 1 Cor. 16. But you must prove that we have in those Scriptures or some other infallible evidence for the Apostolical Institution of the Observation of the Lord's day and not for the mere Apostolical practice or you will say nothing to the purpose But to save my self the labour of saying more upon this Argument and of replying to those few lines that follow against the Primitiveness of our Episcopacy I entreat you to consult Mr. Chillingworth's Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated together with the most Learned Dean of St Pauls his Ample Proof of these two Propositions in his Vnreasonableness of Separation p. 244 c. viz. First that our Diocesan Episcopacy is the same for substance which was in the Primitive Church And Secondly That it is not repugnant to any Institution of Christ nor devising a new species of Churches without God's Authority As to what you say p. 19. about Liturgies viz. that they cannot be indifferent if indeed as our Author speaks they be highly expedient to be universally imposed yea necessary I reply you have not caught him in a Contradiction as you think for his saying concerning Liturgies c. pag. 38. is That he takes it for granted that they are all indifferent in their own nature And tells you what he means by those words in the next viz. that there is nothing of viciousness or immorality in any of them c. Now is it a contradiction to say of the same thing that it is indifferent in its own nature and that 't is necessary considering certain circumstances And I farther say that Liturgies are necessary considering that through humane Weakness and Frailty the performance of publick worship with that Solemnity and Gravity which it calls for cannot be secured and yet notwithstanding they are still things in their own nature indifferent and so are all those things too which God ' s Positive Laws have made necessary as all know who understand the difference between Moral and Positive But as to the Antiquity of Liturgies which you say our Author knoweth to be denied you have had a good while extant that Discourse which he said was expected and which you say you will patiently wait for to give you satisfaction about this matter And it is excellently fitted as I hope you have before now found not onely for the satisfying of Dissenters about that point relating to Liturgies but divers others also In your next Paragraph you tell us that all Divines will readily acknowledge that such a Method and Order of a Liturgy as is not contrived in Subserviency to the 3 General Rules of Doing all to Edification the Glory of God and not giving offence to any of the Churches of God may make it unlawfull And I also do readily acknowledge this and am confident that you cannot prove that Ours is not so contrived as to be made not Subservient unto those Rules And as to the last of them whatsoever Churches please to take offence at our Liturgy I am sure it gives no offence to them In what follows you profess that you never thought it unlawfull for any Laick wholly to separate from the Church of England because of our Liturgy and I hope you think it no more Lawfull for a Clergy-man nor did your self ever so separate But for all that you know that many hundreds and I fear some thousands do But you say there is a new Generation started up that not onely makes you a Separatist but all Conformable Ministers if they do not every time read the Second Service at the Altar This in good earnest is somewhat a hard Case but I pray Sir by what figure do you call one Start-up Warm Head a new Generation In your next Paragraph pag. 20. You say Our Author hath spied four little Thorns in some Dissenters Flesh which he hath very charitably endeavoured to pick out And you add that you will candidly enquire if no bit of them remain which may cause pain and hinder healing To make no reflexion Sir upon your expressing your self thus phancifully your meaning must be that you will enquire whether our Author hath not well defended the four things in our Liturgy which Dissenters object against as symbolizings with the Roman Service from being liable to just Offence Of which The First is The shortness of many Prayers But you say not one word in answer to what he speaks in the Vindication thereof But tell us that if some Dissenters think that throughout the Scriptures there is nothing like this to be found either in the Prayers of Solomon c. or any others and be a little stumbled at it you cannot condemn them But you must needs condemn it as an errour in them to think there are no short Prayers to be found in the Holy Scriptures when there are many more short than there are long Prayers When our Saviour used in the Garden thrice a shorter Prayer than is any one in our Service And when the Form he left behind him for our use is a very short one But if the using of a short Prayer be not the thing blamed but the using of several such in the same

Service instead of one very long one I must take leave to say this is more Wantonness And whereas you say you cannot condemn Dissenters if they be a little stumbled at it I say to be stumbled at it so as to make it one pretence for not joining with us in our Prayers is not to be a little stumbled at it And you know that that which our Author is concerned to doe is to perswade Dissenters not to be so much stumbled at any thing in our Prayers as to leave our Communion upon the account thereof Though he would be very glad to have them so well pleased with all of them as not to be in the least stumbled at any of them The Second instance is The Peoples bearing a part with the Minister in Divine Service And whereas our Author hath thought it enough to transcribe what Mr. Baxter hath said in five particulars to vindicate both the Lawfulness and Fitness hereof you reply not one word to any of them But you think you have balanced as your word is those five with five of your own 1. You say These Responses do not suit the gravity and solemnity of Divine Worship But we say they do and our yea is as good as your nay 2. You say many read false oftentimes And whose fault is it if they do But it appears from what is coming that you cannot prove it 3. You say Many Children and Girls understand not what they doe And therefore why do you permit them to join in Singing And why do you suffer them to hear Sermons 4. Those that cannot read you say are not edified in a confused noise not being able to understand what is read And then I hope you might have spared your second particular for those that read falsely cannot then be observed so to doe in this confused noise 5. You say Many leud and profane persons are thus made to bear their share in the Ministerial part of Publique Worship c. But do you prove that this is bearing a share in that part of Publique Worship which is proper and peculiar to the Minister and then we will grant that not onely no profane men but no Lay-men neither be they never so good may have their part therein 6. You say There is no such practice in the Churches of God in New England Scotland France Holland c. Do you think that our Author hath taken the Solemn League and Covenant that you urge such an Argument as this to him If you do you are much mistaken Sir But Mr. Baxter tells you in his fifth particular That it was the decay of zeal in the people that first shut out the Responses And therefore those Churches you mention should doe well to imitate ours in this particular I am constrained Sir to tell you again that I am ashamed of taking any notice of such talk as this The Third instance is The taking of some of the Collects out of the Missal You say you wish our Author had told us how many But I say 't is not worth the knowing if it were I could soon tell you if those that are taken thence are all good ones And considering what hath been said this is a sufficient Answer Remember our Author hath told you that our Departure from the Church of Rome was designed to be a Reformation not a total Destruction and Extirpation And I suppose the zeal of some Reformers that hurried them upon making no discrimination between things faulty and those that were innocent occasioned that honest saying of Zanchy's which I have heretofore somewhere met with viz. Non intelligo istam Reformatorum Mundi Theologiam As to that which follows to the last Paragraph of pag. 23d Enough abundantly hath already been said to satisfie you that you might have spared it Onely let me once for all tell you that whereas both here and elsewhere you insist upon our being at perfect liberty as to the using or not using those unnecessary things wherein we symbolize with the Church of Rome you ought to know that while they are Enjoyned we who are under Government are not at liberty as the Christians in the Apostles days were as to the Eating of Meats c. And whereas you touch here upon the topick of Scandal I can not hope to satisfie you about this Point if the two late judicious Resolutions of that Case cannot do it To which I refer you and ought so to doe it not falling within our Author's Undertaking The Fourth instance is The Appointing of Lessons out of the Apocryphal Books And what you say under this head amounts to thus much that you think it were better if they were not appointed And therefore I perceive you are not for making this a Pretence for Separation and Consequently you can have no controversie with our Author about it Whether it were better or not that we should imitate the Primitive Church in reading them now and then on Holy-days and ordinary Week-days merely for Example of life and instruction of Manners but not for the Establishing of any Doctrine let it be left to our Superiors to judge But though you have a greater latitude than many other Dissenters as to this matter yet you say that all should not be forced out of their wits nor made to doe what they cannot as well as you apprehend lawfull No God forbid that any one should be forced out of his wits upon such an account But whom can you name that hath had the least trouble given him for not being at Church on a Week-day Holy-day But I must take notice of one more passage before I proceed viz. Holy-days are the same with Sabbath-days with those who judge that there is nothing but Tradition for either Here is a good Wipe for our Author But I pray Sir did he say that there is nothing but Tradition for the Observation of the Sabbath He said that indeed pag. 10th from whence it may be inferred that he believes that the Apostolical institution of the Observation of the Lord's day is wholly to be gathered from the uninterrupted Tradition or Practice of the Catholick Church and is that such a small matter to found it upon When 't is the foundation on which is built the Canon of the Holy Scriptures But who are they that tell you that from the Uninterrupted Tradition of the Catholick Church may be gathered the Apostolical institution of the Other Holy-days Name any one if you are able that so saith or that saith that they are of Apostolical institution Now we are come to those particular Rites and Ceremonies of our Church in which our Author saith pag. 15. Our symbolizing with Popery is so much condemned And you say pag. 24th that he observeth in the general 1. That our Ceremonies are not the hundredth part you should have added scarcely of those used by the Papists And this you grant but you add that we may as well Symbolize in thirty as in three