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scripture_n authority_n church_n infallibility_n 4,945 5 11.7584 5 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A42261 A perswasive to communion with the Church of England Grove, Robert, 1634-1696. 1682 (1682) Wing G2152; ESTC R13941 28,017 46

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their Treachery or their Force This is a Petition I am sure in which no good Christian can refuse to joyn and if we do heartily desire this let u● do what we can to promote it if our Prayer be no● unsincere and hypocritical we shall make use of ou● best endeavours to obtain the thing we have prayed for And now if our Vnion be thus desirable and necessary what should hinder but that at last we might b● all most happily united under the Discipline and Government of the Church of England A Church that i● already Framed and Constituted that has the Countenance and Establishment of the Laws that has bee● Protected by a Succession of Wise and Pious Princes that was Defended unto Death by our late Martyre● Sovereign that was Restored by his Majesty that now is and has been ever since so graciously Cherished b● him as if the Care of it were a Quality inherent an● hereditary to the Crown A Church that was Reformed by full and sufficient Authority upon mature and serious Deliberation with a perfect submission to the Rule of holy Scripture and a due regard to the example of the most Primitive times A Church that has constantly rejected all the Errours and Corruptions of Rome that admits of neither their Infallibility nor Supremacy that allows no Purgatory nor Indulgences no adoration of Reliques and Images no Praying to Saints nor Angels that does not think that God can be pleased with idle Pilgrimages or a forced Celibacy or any set number of Ave's and Pater noster's or other formal Devotions exactly computed upon a string of Beads and muttered over in an unknown Tongue that does not rob the Laity of half the Communion nor teach them that strange and contradictious Doctrine that the Elements are transubstantiated into the real Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper that does not only constantly deny these and many more absurd and erroneous Opinions of the Papists but has always sent forth as stout and able Champions to oppose them as any the Christian World affords A Church whose Doctrine is confessed to be Orthodox by the generality of our Dissenting Brethren and whose Discipline and Order of external Worship has nothing in it repugnant to any Law of God And what imaginable ground can there then be to justifie a Separation from such a Church Certainly the use of a few Indifferent things appointed only for Order's sake will not be enough to do it These are not Forbidden and therefore cannot be Sinful in themselves and where God has not Forbidden our Superiours may Command and in all such cases we are bound to Obey Some indeed there are that will not be satisfied with this They tell us that it is not sufficient that a thing be not Forbidden but that it must be Commanded or else it cannot be used in the Worship of God without Sin But if this Opinion be true I must confess that then it is Unlawful to hold Communion not only with ours but with any Church that is or ever was in the World for I do not believe that One can be found amongst them All that has not required the use of some Indifferent thing that was not Commanded Our Dissenting Brethren themselves will allow that the Time and Place of Religious Assemblies may be prescribed by Authority And if these necessary Circumstances may be thus Determined though they be not Commanded by God then it will be as Lawful to prescribe what particular Gestures and Habits shall be there used For these are things of the same Nature Circumstances as necessary as Time and Place and if we have any respect to the Decent and Reverent performance of the Service of God they may be as necessary to be determined too However it must be acknowledged that some things that are not Commanded may be Lawfully Enjoyned and Submitted to and if some then all that are of the same Indifferent nature unless there can be some sufficient reason assigned why some should be excepted and some not which will be very difficult where the Nature of the things is the same And in our present case it will be hard in the general to conceive how the Command of a Lawful Power should make that Unlawful which was not Forbidden and by consequence was Lawful before But if it should be still insisted on that nothing must be Commanded that God has not Commanded they that are of this Perswasion should be very certain that they have clear proof out of the Scriptures for it before they undertake to Forbid that which God has not Forbidden or else they stand condemned by their own Principle Now the Arguments they bring for this out of the New Testament are very few And those very obscure and no way applicable to the matter in hand without being mightily strained Those out of the Old Testament are not many that which has been chiefly urged and seems indeed the most pertinent and material is this The whole Levitical Service was particularly prescribed by God himself and Moses was strictly charged to make the Tabernacle and all the Utensils that belonged unto it After the pattern that was shewed him in the Mount And Moses verily was faithful in all his House as a Servant and so is Christ as a Son over his own House that is the Church Therefore as Moses laid down all the particular Rules to be observed in the Worship of God under the Legal Dispensation so has Christ under the Evangelical and it is as dangerous to add as it is to detract from these written Rules we may no more do what is not Commanded then what is Forbidden This I take to be the main Argument that is brought against us in the present Controversie and if this can be Answered all the rest will be but of little Force Therefore to give what satisfaction I can to this I say first that throughout the whole Epistle to the Hebrews where Moses and Christ or the Law and the Gospel are compared the scope of the Apostle is to shew the exact Correspondence there was betwixt the Type and the Antitype and not that our Saviour had as particularly prescribed the Order of external Worship as Moses by Gods appointment had done For it is certain he did not to give but one instance of very many The manner of Celebrating the Passeover how it should be Killed and how it should be Eaten is set down with every minute Circumstance But the Institution of the Supper of our Lord is not so delivered unto us We have only a short Narative with a general Command superadded Do this in remembrance of me And when St. Paul repeats it again he does it without any mention of the Posture of Receiving The Gospel which teaches us a more Spiritual way of Serving God is not so particular in the Circumstantials of Worship as the Law was and we must not affirm that it is because we would have it so We