in a Letter Feb. 8. 1566. wishes that the Vestments together with all the other Remnants of Popery might be thrown both out of their Churches and out of the minds of the People and laments the Queens fixedness to them So that she would suffer no change to be made And in January the same year Sands Archbishop of York writes Contenditur de Vestibus Papisticis utendis vel non utendis dabit Deus his quoque finem Horn Bishop of Winchester in a Letter July 16. 1565. He writes of the Act concerning the Habits with great regret and expresses some hopes that it might be Repealed next Session of Parliament if the Popish Party did not hinder it and he seems to stand in doubt whether he should Conform himself to it or not upon which he desires Bullingers advice And in many Letters writ on that Subject it is asserted that both Crannier and Ridley intended to procure an Act for abolishing the Habits and that they only defended their Lawfulness but not their fitness and therefore they blamed private persons that refused to obey the Laws Bishop Grindal in a Letter Aug. 27. 1556. writes that all the Bishops who had been beyond Sea had at their return dealt with the Queen to let the matter of the Habits fall but she continued inflexible He laments the ill effects of the opposition that some had made to them which had extreamly irritated the Queens Spirit Cox Bishop of Ely laments the aversion that they found in the Parliament to all the Propositions that were made for the Reformation of abuses Peter Martyr to Bishop Hooper At first I conceived no small joy of your singular and earnest study in that you put your endeavour that Christ his Religion may be brought again unto a chast and simple Purity For what should be more desired of all Godly hearts then that all things by little and little should be clean taken away and cut off which have very little or nothing in them that can be referred wholly to Edification but rather be judged of the Godly to be superfluous Homily of Fasting Part 1. p. 172 173. Edit 1673. Gods Church ought not neither may it be so tyed to that i. e. Fasting or any other Order now made or hereafter to be made and devised by the Authority of Man but that it may Lawfully for just causes alter change or mitigate those Ecclesiastical Decrees and Orders yea recede wholly from them and break them when they tend either to Superstition and Impiety when they draw people from God rather than work any edification in them This Authority to mitigate Laws and Decrees Ecclesiastical the Apostles practised signifying Acts 15. they would not lay any other burden upon them than these necessaries King Charles I. in his Declaration with the Advice of his Privy Council Jan. 1641. As for differences among our selves for matters indifferent in their own nature we shall in tenderness to any number of our Loving Subjects very willingly comply with the Advice of our Parliament that some Law may be made for the exemption of tender Consciences from Punishment or Prosecution for such Ceremonies in such cases which in the judgment of most men are held to be matters indifferent and of some to be absolutely unlawful Bishop of Cork and Ross 's Protestant Peacemaker Some Circumstantials may be on our side abated and had been doubtless long ago if men of eager and inflexible Spirits had not hindered Dr. Goods Firmianus Dubit p. 153. Some Wise and Peaceable Men have desired that the use of certain Ceremonies might be forborn at least for a time which not withstanding they are still continued These Peaceable Men do abhor the great sin of Separation and do continue their Conformity Dr. Stillingfleet also in Preface to Vnreasonableness of Separation Mr. Claud of France Mr. De L' Angle c. Ceremonies to be left free The Canons made 1640. Can. 7. In the Practice or Omission of this Rite bowing towards the Altar we desire that the Rule of Charity prescribed by the Apostle may be observed which is that they which use this Rite despise not them who use it not and that they who use it not condemn not those that use it Bishop Bilson of Subjection Part 4. p. 15. Strangers are suffered in their Churches to retain their own Ceremonies as be neither against Faith and good Manners and therefore may be born in Christian Unity without offence or confusion Letter to Johannes a Lasco concerning the use of such Signs It is surely the part of Brotherly Charity commanded us by God to leave the use of those Signs free to the Judgment and Conscience of the Congregation except we see an open abuse either of Superstition or of Contention as if they displeased the greater and better part of the Church It was evident at St. Pauls time by the most clear Scriptures of God that the use of days meats and all other external things was made free and it was a sure token of infirmity of Faith to doubt thereof Lord Bacon in his Considerat Dedicat. to K. James I. For the Cap and Surplice since they be things in their nature indifferent and yet by some held Superstitious and that the Question is between Science and Conscience it seemeth to fall within the compass of the Apostles Rule which is that the stronger descend and yield to the weaker only the difference is that it will be materially said that the Rule holds between a private man and a private man and not between the Conscience of a private man and the order of a Church But yet sith the Question at this time is of a Toleration not by connivance which may encourage disobedience but by Law which may give a Liberty it is good again to be advised whether it fall not within the equity of the former Rule And for subscription if seemeth to be in the nature of a Confession and therefore proper to bind in the unity of Faith and to be urged rather for Articles of Doctrine than for Rites and Ceremonies and points of outward concernment For howsoever Politick Considerations and Reasons of State may require Uniformity yet Christian and Divine grounds look chiefly upon Unity Dr. Edw. Bulkleys Apol. for the Religion Established Edit 1608. p. 112. Touching the use of Surplices Organs c. in Divine Service I say that men may differ in Opinions of these things and agree in unity of Faith and Knowledge of the Son of God. Doctor Fuller in his Appeal of injured Innocence in defence of his Church History Multiformity in things meerly indifferent with mutual Charity doth more promote Gods Glory then Uniformity it self Doctor Mores Mystery of Godliness Sect. 10. Pref. About the Communion I confess an Uniformity would look better in outward shew but is not worth the least stir and violence in diversities of actious or rather circumstances interpretable to so good a meaning as either Kneeling or Sitting at the
and for the generality of them were deprived for their Nonconformity 5. This Worship hath been eventually Evil by weakning the hands of Discipline while the scandalous open evil Livers have escaped the Censures of the Church together with the more peaceable and innocently-minded Separatists Thus Dr. Cumber on the Communation Service Discipline with-held saith he in favour of Dissenters lest by imposing of it there this Holy Means of Reformation should be despised rather than obeyed And should Men have gone about to suppress and reform Debauchery and Prophaneness by a strict Presentation of them the Court which hath more hotly pursued the Dissenters than the Scandalous and Vicious would like enough have put them upon Presentment of Dissenters without any favour or difference between the weak and the wilful which because of the ill Consequence which too often followed Excommunication and Imprisonment many Ministers and Church-Wardens were more backward and averse unto Their Consciences would not suffer them to work such ill and trouble to their Christian Brethren Fellow Protestants Loving Neighbours for some small difference in lesser matters not destructive of their Salvation And no doubt but the Wisdom of our Governours saw the Evil and Inconvenience of those severities When they took away the Penal Laws that made the Common Prayer and Act for Vniformity so terrible to the contrary-minded Arg. 3. For Proof that the Common Prayer according to the Acts for Uniformity is inconvenient in some respect and may admit of Alteration because of the great disgusts and almost invincible prejudices of People especially in the Country against this Worship or at least some things therein Cars Peaceable Moderator or Plain Considerations for satisfaction to the disaffected to our Common-Prayers In the Preface many stumble much at our Book of Common Prayers and some of them I take to be good Christians honest moderate well-meaning People and have found by experience much of their disaffection to it doth lye upon their mistake through Ignorance not peevish wilfulness After all our Preaching and Instruction and Exhortations in behalf of the Common Prayer we do not find that success which we use to have in other matters and which we might expect if their prejudice were not so deeply rooted in them and too mighty for us The difficulty is great because the guilt of People is great Where People have often sinned any Sin the harder it is to repent And how often have may been present at these Prayers Yet I fear scarce ever prayed heartily and acceptably Again Sins descending from Parents to their Children are harder to be worked out of them but prejudices against this Worship have been transmitted down from Parents and as it were entailed upon some Families So that there is as little hopes of gaining them over as for bringing Men off from the Religion of their Ancestours which commonly proves unsuccessful Again the Commonness of this Guilt were it but two or three in a Congregation that were prejudiced against it there were the more hopes that by the Examples of others they might be recovered But when it is a great if not the greater part of the Congregation that is not heartily reconciled to this Worship as I fear it is in too many Parishes It is the greater difficulty when the Disease is so general when the Infection hath spread it self so much to cure it effectually There is too much proof of Peoples prejudices in that the number is so small so few that come to the Prayers upon the Holy Dayes and yet the Church is so exceedingly full at a Funeral Sermon or any other preaching time when People are not much longer at Church than on some Holy Dayes And on the Lord's Day there are few that will come to the Prayers to be present at the whole Service many hard Speeches against them some reviling them as the Mass-Book Popish Superstitious will Worship Prayers of course a cold dead piece of Formality There are so many Objections Scruples and Cavils against it as dull and tedious for the length of it as a Form of others making and not the Ministers own as Book-Prayers slighted by the vulgar upon that account who say they can read the Common Prayer as well as the Parson against the Responses though used among the Jews and Primitive Christians against the short Prayers and Hymns read and not sung disused both in our other Devotions more commonly but one continued Prayer without ony intermixture against some things censured as vain Repetitions and against the Ceremonies used in the Worship As to particular exceptions you may find enough if not more than enough in the Grand Debate between the Conformists and Nonconformists How these prejudices may be in a great measure abated and taken away I shall show as the benefit of Union That a Comprehension of the more sober and moderate Dissenters might do it in time Evils of this Prejudice First It is the cause of the scandalous abuse and profanation of Holy Dayes If People were unprejudiced an Hour spent in devout Prayer and praises due Attention unto the Word of God and sometime in good instruction of Youth and Explication upon the Church-Catechisme or Exposition of the Epistle and Gospel of the Day would turn to some good account and the Evening Service used to as appointed on Holy Dayes but prejudice mars and hinders all this from taking effect and makes our Holy-Dayes useless in many Parishes a loss and hindrance rather than advantage to Religion Secondly It hath occasioned much dishonour to God on the Lord's Day First By a great neglect of this Worship several absenting from it and staying till the Prayers are over before they come and losing the benefit of this Worship wholly which is commonly the bigger half of God's Worship on the Forenoons and the whole Service of God in many Parishes in the Afternoon there being no Sermon nor Catechising nor at least no Explication of Catechisme And is it nothing for so many People in many Parishes to lose the benefit of half God's solemn Worship No doubt but they are highly guilty before God and will be found so at that day when Sins which the World counts light of shall appear in their just weight of Guilt according to the Word of God. Again Secondly It occasions much dishonour to God on his own day by reason of Peoples great unprofitableness in this Duty many present at it manifesting such a careless Spirit as if they were not worshipping God doing any thing rather than that Some waiting with great impatience until the Prayers be at an end as if there were no good to be gotten by them How is it to be expected that it should be done to edifying until Peoples prejudices be removed That their Hearts should be right and devout in a Worship which their minds are not reconcil'd unto They must be brought to some good liking of it as a true and sound Worship of God such as God will
Animosities which have distracted and separated its Parts Mr. Wakes Serm. on Rom. 15.5 6 7. I do not believe there is any good Christian so little affected with those unhappy Divisions under which the Church at this day labours as not both heartily to deplore them and to think that nothing could be too much that might innocently be done on all hands for the redressing of them And to show that these Worthy Men had cause to complain and bewail our Divisions I shall Exemplifie the Evils The Mischief of our Divisions THE First Mischief promoting Atheisme Arch-Bishop Grindal in his Fair Warning Part 2. Edit 1663 expressed his great fear of two things Atheism and Popery and both arising out of our needless differences By these the Enemies of our Religion gain this that nothing can be established by Law in the Protestant Religion whose every part is not opposed by some or other of her own Professors so that things continuing loose and confused the Papists have their Opportunity to urge their way which is attended with Order and Government And our Religion continuing thus distracted and divided some vile Wretches lay hold on the Arguments on one side to confute the other and so hope at last to destroy all Judge Hale 's Discourse of Religion p. 49. When Men see so much Heat and Passion so much Fervour and Contention such Reproaches and Revilings such Exasperations of Authority on either Party such mutual Prosecutions one of another that more could not possibly be done between Dissenters in those points which both agree to be Fundamental Atheistical Spirits are apt to conclude that probably those points that both sides supposed to be of greater moment are Ejusdem Farinae as those in Contest which all Men take to be small and inconsiderable Mr. Hooker 's Ecclesiastical Politie p. 18. Speaking of Atheistical persons by our Contentions their Irreligious Humour is much strengthened Also by the hot persuit of lower Controversies among Men professing Religion and agreeing in the principal Foundation thereof they conceive hope that about the higher Principles themselves time will cause Alteration to grow Abner 's Plea for Accommodation p. 41. It will cast a scandal on Religion it will open the Mouths of the Adversaries of the Truth The Name of God is blasphem'd among the Gentiles through you saith the Apostle Rom. 2.24 The worst sort among them scoff at it it is meat and drink to them And the better sort are stagger'd by it discouraged from coming within the pale of the Church when they observe Christians as Contentious as Pagans Believers as quarrelsome as Insidels Vnity of Catholick Christians The many Divisions and Animosities which have distracted and separated the parts of Christendom these have opened the Mouths and whet the Tongues of its professed Enemies to Reviling and Railings and Prophane Scoffs against our Blessed Lord and Saviour and his Holy Religion and stifled the first thoughts of admitting the most Convincing Truths to a debate among Jews Turks or Pagans and stopt their Ears against the wisest Charmes To no one cause can we more reasonably impute the small progress which Christianity hath made in the World for a Thousand years past The same contents have a pernicious influence at home upon the Faith and Manners of those within the Pale of the Church Men are hereby too soon tempted into some degree of Sceptiscism about very material points of Christian Doctrine in which they observe so many to differ among themselves Bishop Hacket on Acts 15.39 Where many Sects spring up it calls the Truth more into question and the fewer Proselytes will be gained Secondly By bringing Men to a Lukewarmness and Indifferency in the great things of Religion Bishop Whitgift 's Letter to the Council in Fullers Hist L. 9. That in King Edwards Time and in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths before the heat of these Contentions the Gospel mightily prevailed But since this Schism and Division the contrary Effects have happened Design of Christian p. 236. It is too visibly apparent to be denied that those who have such a scalding hot Zeal or contend so earnestly either for or against things of no certainty and no necessity are many of them as their Predecessors the Pharisees were in the very other Extream as to not a few of the weightiest matters of Religion Conformists Plea for the Nonconformists Part 4. pag. 17 It renders the Labours of the Worthiest suspected and despised by the contrary-minded The most useful profitable searching Books which the World hath most need of are not as much as look'd into by many but rejected because the Books off F s as they are called Yea more if a Conformist have the Name of F some of our Church-P will not come nigh the door-posts of Wisdom Mr. Kidder 's Sermons 1 Pet 3.11 We quarrel for Trifles and neglect our unquestionable Duty to God and Man. Doctor Burnet Bishop of Salisbury Matth. 12.25 p. 5. The ill Effects of this Zeal or Contentiousness upon our selves will be That as this Temper grows upon us all our inward seriousness will in a great measure abate and turn meerly to a Form And with that many other Sins will creep in upon us we will bear with many ill things in others because they are of our Party whom otherwise we would detest for their ill Lives and by Conversing much with them we will contract at least a Familiarity with their Vices and perhaps imagine That by our rage and heat we offer up some acceptable Sacrifice to God to compensate for out other Disorders Causes of Decay of Piety p. 251. When bitter Zeal was once fermented the Orthodoxy or Heresie of Lives became soon Tearms out-dated and Men were measured only by Opinions Item p. 301. They are not much discomposed to see Men of no Religion 't is only the having one different from their own that makes their Indignation Mr. Cook 's Sermons on Rom. 12.18 p. 24 What a siding is there with this and the other Zealous and Conscientious Sect even by those that have neither Zeal nor Conscience but are Deriders of both and of strict Holiness in all sorts of Professors Appendix to the third part of the Friendly Debate p. 143 Doctor Jackson tells us the first ground of his dislike to the chief Solicitors of Reformation in our Church was the deformity of their Zeal not moving them to redress known Enormities of the Common-wealth much more material and much more nearly concerning the Advancement of the Gospel than those doubtful Controversies of Formality about which they strove Bishop Wilkins on Rom. 14.17 18 Let a Man but indifferently look round about him amongst all the kinds of Parties in our times even those who in his own judgment he esteems the best and then say Whether both our Common Peace and the Power of Religion hath not suffered exceedingly upon the account of our Zeal in lesser matters Another Mischief it destroys Charity Doctor Steward 's Englands Case
that Jehosaphat and his Jews needed not to strike a stroke 2 Chron. 20.3 Isa 9.21 Gal. 5.15 It is a Dutch device and a good one to this purpose of two earthen pots swimming on the water frangimur si collidimur we are broken all to pieces if we clash one against another Idem p. 31. Besides that God doth often punish breaches and divisions in the Church among Christians by raising up some storm against them which may teach them better to agree we being in this too like to Sheep which on a fair Sun-shine day are scattered each from other upon the Mountains but a storm brings them together So doth Eusehius relate that the Church enjoyed much peace and freedom immediately before the Perfection raised against it by Dioclesian and making no better use of it than to fall asunder into Divisions and Factious Contentions instantly God took a course by way of punishment to cover the Daughter of Zion with a Cloud in his Anger and to cast down from Heaven to Earth the beauty of Israel and not to remember his footstool in the day of his Anger setting up the Right-hand of his Churches enemies and making their adversaries to rejoyce Lam. 2.1 Psal 39.42 Mr. Ward of Ipswich 's Sermons p. 253. Charity Charity is the builder of Churches Strife about trifles hath wasted many famous ones and placed the Temple of Mahomet where the Golden Candlestick was wont to stand We pity the former Ages contending about leavened and unleavened Bread Keeping of Easter Fasting on Sundays the future Ages will do the like by us Pygots Abuers Plea for Accommodation in 43. p. 33. Take heed your private dissentions do not expose you as a prey to the common adversary I remember the dying Fathers admonition to his Sons Having call'd them all together he caused a Faggot to be brought into the Room and commanded the stoutest of them to break it they tryed one after another but none of them could do it then he bade them undo the band and take them stick by stick and so they snapped them asunder like a twined thread Thus shall it be with you my Sons saith the Old Man when I am dead if you continue united and knit together in the bond of Peace and Love no Enemies shall be able to hurt you but if you once break the bond and fall into differences among your selves you 'l presently be broken to pieces and come to nothing Item p. 42. The wild Boar of the Forest I mean the Turk had never made such inrodes into Christendom had it not been for the dissention of Christian Brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vpon the Rebellion in Ireland Ejac. 3. Because we have not more loved thy Truth and practiced in Charity thou hast suffered a Spirit of error and bitterness of mutual and mortal hatred to arise among us Bishop Reynolds Broth. Agreement p. 18. Cites holy Cyprian who in his time looked upon it as one great cause of that sore Persecution which God sent upon the Church Had Unanimity and Peace said he been amongst the Brethren we had long ago obtained our Petitions from Divine Mercy neither had we been thus long tossed with those Tempests which endanger our Faith and Salvation Imo vero nec venissent Fratribus haec mala si in unum fraternitas at fuisset animata Bishop Hacket on Acts 15.39 p. 8 9. The passage is well known about Constantine the Great how he remov'd from his Palace in the East because every corner of the Imperial City was filled with adverse disputations about Religion much more you may presume that God will depart from that Church where the flames of notorious discords are Causes of decay of Christian Piety p. 304. As to the extirpation of the Eastern Churches he that shall examine the Records of those Times will have cause to say their janglings and divisions were not only in a Moral and Divine but even in a proper natural sence the Instruments of it the Turk only coming in at those breaches which themselves have made Glanvells Cath. Charity p. 17. The greatest evils that have or can happen to the Church have been the effects of the decay of Charity and of those intestine divisions that have grown up in it From these she hath always suffered more than from external Persecutions The flames within have consumed her when those from without have only sing'd her garments Bishop of Salisbury 's Exhort to Peace and Vnion on Matth. 12.25 p. 3. There is nothing that defeats the end of Religion more and doth more naturally lead to all manner of sin and impieties which must end in Temporal as well as Eternal ruine then our Divisions Pag. 9. In Divisions either party will be so intent on their little designs that the whole may perish and they will bite and devour one another till they are either consumed one of another or made an easie Conquest to those that both see and improve all their advantages Item Exhort p. 10 11. The. Africans continued quarrelling about Cecilian and his ordainers till the Vandals came and destroyed both the one and the other Item p. 11. And can we think without astonishment that the difference of the Procession of the Holy Ghost could ever have rent the Greek and Latin Churches so violently one from another that the Latins rather than assist the other look'd on till they were destroyed by the Ottoman Family which has ever since been so terrible a Neighbour to the rest of Europe Mr. Hesketh on Lam 3.20 21. p. 25. It were seasonable to have made some reflections upon the unchristian heats and unreasonable differences that are among us things that render us not only sinners but great fools and plain contrivers for our own Ruine For these are evils that will destroy us alone and by their own weight sink us into destruction Divided Societies last not long the experience of all Ages confirms it for a Truth and I do not see what reason we have to expect an exemption from the common fate Dr. Mores Mystery of Iniquity p. 554. What harm is it to presage so well of the Reformation as that after the decursion of the years of their Childhood God will ripen them into a more Manly sence of the great and indispensable Duties of the Gospel that he will not tolerate nor connive any longer at their Childish squabling about Nut-shells Counters and Cherry-stones and menace them even with destruction if they leave not off their animosities and asperities of mind about toys and trifles and hold fast to the Royal Law of Love If ye bite and worry one another take heed that ye be not consumed one of another Gal. 5.15 Mr. Hancocks Sermon on Luke 19.42 If the judgments of God which we have already groaned under cannot sure the dangers that threaten us and our Religion might help to abate our heats and suppress our differences Did not Christianity decay in the Church of Corinth as their Schisms