Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A56811
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The conformist's third plea for the nonconformists argued from the king's declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs : grounded upon the approved doctrine and confirmed by the authorities of many eminent fathers and writers of the Church of England / by the author of the two former pleas.
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Pearse, Edward, 1631-1694.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing P981; ESTC R11263
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89,227
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94
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confirming their Prayers and Thanks with saying Amen and other Divine Service than this they had none Pag. 636. We do not think that Basil or Chrysostom would take upon them to make a new Form of Church-Service if St. James the Apostle had done it before them From this Testimony it is clear that if Uniformity in one Form of Worship or Common-Prayer and Ceremonies be necessary for Church-Union then there was no Church-Union or Catholick-Communion in the Apostolical-Churches because there was no Form or Order of Divine Service set and prescribed But there was the most Christian and Catholick Communion in that Diversity therefore Catholick Union and Communion without one prescribed and set Form And hence the Dissenting Brethren have the Countenance of an ancient venerable Bishop of Winchester for them and to convince their Troublers for using a Worship different from the Liturgy of the Church of England Prophe-ying praying praising God are parts of God's Worship tho in differing Words and Method they are the same Divine Worship And who act nearest the Primitive Pattern of the Apostles and purest times they who worship God in Christ by the Spirit or they who will not suffer them Object But the Apostles and Teachers had the Guidance of the Spirit Answ They had but that Assistance which they had for performing the Worship of God was not extraordinary or peculiar to their Times because Gospel-Worship was to be performed in all After-ages of the Church Qâ—o in loco scil Jo. 20. ostendiâ— eum solum â—osse baptizare temissionem peccatorum dare qui habeat Spiâ—itum Sanctum Cyprian ad magnum and by Consequence the Assistance of the Spirit was to continue to all Ministers in succeeding Ages without whose Assistance we can do nothing And the Holy Spirit doth continue to give Gifts and Graces to his Ministers and People and if one Form were absolutely necessary for all Ages it is a wonder that the Apostles did not leave us one Form is but a mode and to be used or not used as is most for Edisication and they that use it not should not condemn them that use it and they who use it should not as I conceive judg them as Schismaticks that use it not but joyn one with another Object But it is a Disorder in the same Church and Government and not to be born it looks like a different Religion Answ The Romanists have often charged the Church of England with permitting different Religionsin the Nation But let the same learned Bishop answer for me In England the People Pag. 15. both strange and liege worship God the Father in Spirit and Truth according to the Gospel of his Son agreeing together in the Substance of one Faith and the right Order of Christ's Sacraments Only Strangers are suffered in their Churches to use their own Tongue and retain their own Ceremonies as be neither against Faith nor adverse to good Manners and therefore by St. Augustine's Judgment may go for indifferent and may be born in Christian Vnity without Offence or Confusion Oh! if this Doctrine were believed in our days the People of God might be said to rest at Noon And he was not singular In Doctrinâ Fidei Orthodoxae Professione discordia inter nos nulla saith the learned Crakenthorp of the Puritans Hac integrâ in Ritibus Defensione Eccles Angl. contra Spalat c. 43. p. 254. Disciplinsi discrimen ferendum utrique scimus Difference in Ceremonies and Discipline was tolerable in their Opinion but now intolerable The Champions of the Church of England in former days against the Papists were moderate when we know there was a different way of Discipline and Decency secretly practised If Doctrine be the direction of Practice to be moderate in Doctrine but severe in Practice and Execution is to put out the Candle and kindle a Fire to preach Charity but to shew no Mercy To draw towards a Conclusion Let us but truly judg of the elder Nonconformists with righteous Judgment 1. Before his Majestie 's wonderful Restauration in all Countries and Places where they lived and preached who did rebuke reprove exhort and fulfil all parts of Minsters more than they Who maintained Protestant Doctrines preached for Conviction Conversion Holiness and Righteouness more than they Who vindicated all Ordinances from some that pretended to live above them Others that denied the necessity and use of them and from the Profanation of sacred Things And who did more forwardly assist and concur to settle the Government upon ancient Foundations and in the Inheritor of the Royal Throne Who were more hated by impious Sects or that laboured more to convince and reduce them than they 2. At that time and since how highly were they placed in the King 's good Opinion as is fully expressed in his Royal Declaration 3. They did shew a Forwardness and Zeal to settle the Church denying their own private Opinions to lay down solid Foundations for a Comprehensive Church 4. When they quietly submitted to the Law of their Ejectment did they did any of them sow Sedition or ill Principles of Faction was their Exhortation of deceit or guile to incense their loving Auditors or oblige and conjure them to any thing inconsistent with the Gospel or unlike Men as going from the Pulpit to God's Tribunal to give him an Account of their Doctrine Faith manner of Life see any of their broken Notes and Farewell-Sermons printed much to their Disadvantage Testify against them who can 5. Except they had renounced their sacred Calling and silenced themselves who could have imployed their Labours with more inoffensiveness to Authority more Toil to themselves and more Profit to precious Souls and less Opposition to the publick than they did as will appear in Instances An honourable Member Sir H. C. Anno 1670 71 in full Parliament took notice of it that there were no Conventicles yes they took pains to preach when others were at rest in great Privacies and Solitudes And let 's be just who hath made any Observation of People and Assairs that will not say for one Schismatick we had had many had it not been for their great Industry and who for all that are Schismaticks but they See Mr. Allen Say to Archippus p. 23. scil your not p eaching will occasion Separation indeed c. It is not Thanks-worthy to keep poor weak Souls in the Faith and Truth except they turn Lay-men and all come up even to the Rails i. e. to the heighth 6. God and the King made their Assemblies so numerous and publick God by a tremendous course of Judgments yet remembring Mercy The King after 12 Years Experience of fruitless Severity sent out his Declaration of Indulgence Some of themselves have published the Providence of God but it is not worth the noting and they that are resolved on their way will not be hindred by making Observation even of the Works of God When God sent a dreadful Plague
Schism p. 32. The only Steps by which we can mutually move to Peace I with all submission conceive to be these 1. That we all would seriously study Self-denial and that with a peculiar Eye and regard to Accommodation one perhaps of Popularity another of a particular Humor another of somewhat else All of whatsoever good Conscience tells us is less valuable than common Vnion p. 33. But notwithstanding what I have said of the Excellency both of the Common-Prayers and of Cathedral Performances I do conceive the Alteration of an Expression or here and there of a whole Prayer or two by Law or dispensing with some Ceremonies in loco I do not conceive such Relaxation as this would break the Harmony and Beauty of our Worship or disturb the Vnion and Peace of our Church There are some Collects and perhaps some Rubricks too which with all duty and submission I humbly conceive might be altered for the better pag. 118 119. This honourable Embassador of Peace speaks home and from his heart and shall for ever sit high in the esteem of all the Sons of Peace Here are Proposals conditional indeed with the consent of Authority as they should be that will certainly be imbraced by Dissenters But now if the Church should condescend if I may call that a Condescension which is done for Christ as far as it can without Schism and the Dissenters as far as they can with a good Conscience What shall be done if they cannot come up to a full and perfect closure Shall the Dissenter have no benefit by his Consent to the great things and the greatest number of things in which they agree already shall he be not only excluded but punished altho he continue peaceable in his Dissent In such a case here is an apparent Necessity of mutual Forbearance in Love and of the Bond of Peace to keep in the Vnity of the Spirit And here I cannot without a great respect to another Conformist of Worth and Quality as I am informed repeat the Words which are like a healing Plaister to a heart bruised between our grating Differences The way to make National Religion most National is by comprehending all the Differences that can be reconciled with true Religion while they that dissent in some things receive one another with a good peaceable holy and publick Temper of Mind as the great Argument and Inducement of which we should all pray for the Acceptance of the holy Service of all that call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Apostle distinguishes Christians but immediately unites them again both theirs and ours they and we whatever smaller Distinctions make the They and the We are both one in our Lord Jesus Christ We ought to pray for the common Benefit of all so united though not bound up in the same common Form with us for a gracious Audience and Reception of their and our Worship of God that so the Spirit of Love and Vnion in the main may convey all our Services into one before God where indeed if they are as he requires they meet stript of all their outward Circumstances Form and Ceremony Faith and Obedience being alone able to mount thither with them And Services so raised can by no means be spared for small Differences in a National Religious Interest for the Angels of all such behold the Face of our Father in Heaven Thus that excellent Person The whole Duty of Nations p. 61. who writes himself a Minister of the Catholick Church as it is National in England The same Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation breaths forth in peaceable Discourses of true Protestant Christian Gentlemen of excellent Learning and hearty Concernment for their and our Religion taking several ways The Learned Sir Thomas Overbury hath proposed many Questions of great Weight and discoursed upon them piously and smartly Sir John Mallet hath drawn up the Contents that might be Heads of useful and necessary Discourses for Gentleness towards Protestant Dissenters tho he himself and Family come duely to Church-Service and Sacraments Letter to the Author of the Guide to the English Juries printed after it and use some of the Common-Prayers in his Family The Author of the Appendix to Mr. Hunt's Argument hath discovered a good Will to Peace and Accommodation But most fully and of set-purpose a very learned and true Christian Gentleman that holds constant Communion with the Church of England hath turned aside answering the Title of his Book like a good Samaritan to help up a bleeding Church and powr a Composition of choice Preparations to heal her Wounds But alas have not and do not our Sins separate between us and our God Oh! how are they increased that make that Separation O! how hot are they against a Separation that is both curable and tolerable in comparison of theirs If their Assemblies if their Exercises were called seditious and Twenty Pounds upon the Houses of their Assemblies and but 5 s. upon every one that communicates in their Sins it would be more pleasing to God and more for the Establishment and Prosperity of the Kingdom than their Prosecutions of Dissenters in point of Ceremony many of these consult keep their Meetings sedulously concur unanimously and lay Spies in wait to apprehend the Preachers of the Word of Salvation These breath out Threatnings and what they will do But if this chanee to fall into any of their Hands I will present one warning more and a notable Example to them William Lantgrave of Hasse Casp Peucer Historia Carcerum Part 2. pag. 773. made Intercession with Augustus the Elector of Saxony for Dr. Peucer Prisoner a long time for his dissent in the Vbiquitarian Controversy The Elector promised his release if Anne his Duchess would be willing and desired him to try her first she replied according to her Obstinacy If she lived he should not be released Which Answer of hers the Lantgrave and other wise Men did thus interpret That the Dutchess should shortly dy that Peucer by her Death might be released and so it proved according to their Interpretation she died saith Dr. Peucer in that very moment in which I dreamed in my Sleep of a great and noble Funeral and a Bell ringing and as the Bell-rope brake that Verse of the Psalm came into my Mind Our Soul is escaped as a Bird out of the Snare of the Fowler the Snare is broken and we are escaped And among what Prodigies she died is known to all I am confident if the Persecutors of our peaceable and religious Nonconformists were studious to prepare for Death they would forbear this Work and as it is dreadful for any of them to dy in their Sins unrepented of and to dy in this Sin so let them take heed that some of the greatest of them do not fall by an apparent Hand of God I do profess if I had any Friend engaged in this horrid Work I would perswade him if possible to forbear