Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
truth_n according_a church_n doctrine_n 2,019 5 6.0761 4 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A45675 The Minster of Cirencester's address to the dissenters of his parish occasion'd by the death of their preacher : together with the answer that was made thereto and his reply to that answer : to which is prefixed a letter relating thereto from the Right Reverend Father in God Edward Lord Bishop of Gloucester. Harrison, Joseph. 1698 (1698) Wing H899; ESTC R28524 45,184 52

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

is all Mens Worship of God and that he that will not communicate with faulty Worship must renounce Communion with all the World and all with him Mr. Calvin assigns two Marks of the visible Church the Word of God truly preached and Sacraments administred according to Christ's Institution and saith That altho' there be many Faults and Corruptions in such a Church yet as long as it retains those Marks Separation from it is not justifiable nay altho' some of those Faults be about Preaching the Word and Administrations of Sacraments for saith he all Truths are not of equal Moment but as long as the Doctrine according to Godliness and the true Vse of the Sacraments is kept up Men ought not to separate upon lesser Differences but they ought to seek the amending what is amiss continuing in the Communion of the Church and without disturbing the Peace and Order of it I had not I own the Opportunity of consulting every one of these Authors but I have given you their sence and very words upon the unquestionable Authority of those two Reverend Bishops of our Church the present Bishop of Worcester and the Bishop of Chichester The former whereof in his Vnreasonableness of Separation hath with great Evidence proved that all the Old Non-conformists did think themselves bound in Conscience to communicate with the Church of England and did look upon Separation from it to be a sin notwithstanding the Corruptions they supposed to be in it And the latter in his Case of Lay-Communion produces the concurrent Testimony of the most eminent Non-conformists that there is nothing required in the Parochial Communion of the Church of England that can be a sufficient reason for Separation from it and though he has collected the sence of a great many yet you may believe him when he tells you that for One Hundred he could easily have produced Two if the Cause were to go by the Poll. These Reverend Authors do not put their Readers off with only telling 'em that the Learned observe and some Authors say so and so but they quote Book and Page and which therefore if you have a Mind to be further satisfied you your Selves may consult Those Non-conforming Ministers might probably be under such Prior Engagements or dislike some things so far that they could not satisfie themselves in making the Declarations and Subscrpitions which are required of Ministers in order to preserve the Peace of the Church and the unity of Christians which does so much depend upon that of its Officers and Teachers But there being no Declarations or Subscriptions required of the People nor any thing more than to attend upon and joyn in the Worship practised and allowed in the Church they according to the Doctrine of those Gentlemen ought not to separate To which I shall not need to add any more than that remarkable Annotation of the Reverend Mr. Pool upon Luke 2.41 One thing says He there is observable The Pharisees and Scribes and Priests had in those days much corrupted the Worship of God by their Traditions yet they retained the Substance of Gods Institution We find both our Saviour and his Disciples and other people of God not wholly forsaking the Jewish Church because of its Corruptions Yet we cannot think they joyned with them in any thing of their Will-Worship from whence we may learn a tenderness as to a total Separation from a Church and the Lawfulness of attending divine Ministrations though attended with Vsages which we approve not provided there be no Idolatry in the Service And the Truth of it is if Separation be justifiable upon the Score of some small whether real or fancied Errors which may be in any Church then Communion must not be held with any part of Christ's Church if not with ours for she is certainly as free from Error as any Church in the whole World and the living in her Communion like Members of so Holy an Institution as safe a way to Salvation as any I know in the world And I so firmly believe what I say in this matter that I challenge all her Adversaries to Compare ours and other Churches with the word of God and the Primitive Church and if they cannot produce one that is freer from Error in Doctrine and Worship than she is or comes nearer to the Primitive Pattern nay if amongst all Competitions and contending Sects among us there is not one to be found that delivers the Truths of the Gospel with greater purity and sincerity That doth teach a Religion more holy and useful that lays greater stress upon a pure Mind and a blameless and undefiled Life that doth give more forcible Arguments for Vertue or more powerful Disswasives from Vice the● I hope you will have better thoughts both of her and my Invitation of you into her Communion and be convinced that you have no just grounds to continue in your Separation upon Pretences of Impurity in her or greater Purity elsewhere But I would have you speak out Is Communion with us sinful or is it not If you say it is you say it without Proof you therein contradict the Opinion of the most eminent of the old Presbyterians you oppose your selves to the Opinion and Practice of the most candid and most honest among those now alive who do not wholly separate themselves from our Communion and if your own Teaches will be true to their real Sentiments I dare be confident they will not say so nay you do herein condemn your own Practice of occasionally joyning with us now and unless you will declare you were then mistaken in your Judgments you make your selves guilty of base Hypocrisie in constantly joyning with us when the Penalties of the Law were inflicted upon those that refused it If you say that Communion with us is not sinful and that therefore you may occasionally joyn with us then let the Assembly of Divines draw the Consequence who say that to separate from those Churches ordinarily and visibly with whom occasionally you may joyn without sin seemeth to be a most unjust Separation That which you quote for One I have shewed to be no Command for you to leave our Church nor can you make it any way applicable thereto till you have proved that there is something taught or practised in our Church which is as bad as the unclean thing there spoken of But did I or ever any Man else say that it was Schism to obey God rather than Man And therefore what need he put me to prove it But that is not your Case my Brethren you causelessly and willfully separate from a sound part of Christ's Church and if that is not Schism I will yield up the cause for ever But let us more particularly examine this mans Notion of Schism and see whether even according thereto you be not guilty of it ANSWER I know Schism properly signifies a Cutting in two a disagreeing in M●●●● a Division in the Church of Christ consisting
own and study to honour God by abstaining from these things by which he never said that he was dishonoured O that all tender Consciences would seriously consider this for they would soon discern that your Ministers by forbidding those things now in dispute lay greater Burthens upon the Consciences of their Brethren and clog them with more duties than God hath laid upon them Whereas we who think those things may be done lay no other Burthen upon the Conscience than what God himself hath laid which is to obey our Governours in all things wherein he himself hath not bidden us to do the contrary ANSWER I shall only touch of Additions in the Service Book there are added three whole Verses to the Fourteenth Psalm and one Verse to the Thirteenth Psalm REPLY If it be granted that there are those Additions he speaks of yet it was not the Mistake of the Common Prayer Book but of the Translations which the Common Prayer followed viz. the Septuagint and Vulgar But I wonder how he came to be so cautious as not to call these Additions to Scripture for that certainly was his meaning The Additions to the 14th Psalm are accounted for in one of the old Bibles by this Note That of this 14th Psalm the 5th 6th and 7th Verses which are put into the Common Translation and may seem unto some to be left out in this are not in the same Psalm in the Hebrew Text but are rather put in more fully to express the manners of the wicked and are gather'd out of the 5th 140th and 10th Psalms the 59th of the Prophet Isaiah and the 36th Psalm and are alledged by St. Paul and placed together in the 3d to the Romans But the saying that there is a Verse added to the 14th Psalm is a notorious Falshood there are only these words I will praise the Name of the Lord most Highest which are in the seventh Psalm and the last Verse What then can this Man be thought to mean Would he insinuate that these Additions are Inventions of our own or that they are inserted by the Church upon some wicked selfish design I hope it appears that they were not nor we upon the score thereof obnoxious to the Penalty of Deut. 4.2 before quoted by him But I would fain know whether they are not deeply guilty of the Crime they charge us with who teach That nothing is to be used in the Worship of God but what is prescribed by God himself for if that be not a Scripture Truth then what an Addition is this Do not they who teach this for a Scripture-Rule and Precept impose upon Mens Consciences as much as Papists and like them and the Pharisees of old teach the Traditions of Men for the Doctrines of God Nay is not this directly contrary to the Gospel it self which tells us that Sin is the Transgression of a Law and that where there is no Law there is no Transgression And thus you all along see with how keen an edge those Weapons turn upon you which you make use of in fighting against us ANSWER In a word I may say of all the Ceremonies in the Service Book as one of your own Church saith of the Succession of Church-Officers and in particular that of Bishops He tells us That our English Bishops received their Orders in the Communion of the Church of Rome and ergo they had as good Orders as any of the Church of Rome they must needs be as good when they are the same But 't is but a weak Proof for the Succession of their Bishops when they must go to Rome for it REPLY One would think it were high time for you to have done with this old Accusation of Popery and that you should have more Prudence than to give us Occasion to upbraid you with your fawning upon and sneaking to it in the late Reign while the Bishops and Clergy of our Church made such a brave and vigorous Defence against it even to the hazard of their ALL. If indeed it be true that our Bishops received their Orders in the Church of Rome then his ergo is good and the only good one he has made in this Paper and the Argument is a good one against the Papists and no weak one neither for the Succession of Church-Officers against you if you pretend to impugn it which if you do it lies at your door to prove a failure in their Succession since our Bishops are in possession of their Authority He ought to have quoted his Author for a Reason before mention'd But what if it be true is therefore Episcopacy unlawful or the Succession of our Bishops not good He may as well argue that the Water is not good or comes not from the Fountain-head because the Conduit thro' which it is convey'd is faulty But since this Man questions the Succession of our Bishops and upbraids us with having our Orders from the Church of Rome it is but reasonable to demand Whether your Preachers have any Orders at all and if they have Whence they had them and thro' what Channel they were convey'd down to them and whether you have any Arguments to urge for the Validity of Their Orders which we cannot with much more reason make use of to prove the Goodness of Ours But we may see how far Envy and Malice will sometimes make People overshoot themselves This Man rather than not send forth his Bolt at our Bishops and Clergy will strike at the whole Reformation and call in Question the Validity of the Orders of all the Reformed Churches of Luther and Calvin himself nay even the Authority of their own Ambassadors As for our Ceremonies tho' they be superstitiously abused by the Papists yet that is no Argument against the present use of them in the Church of England who retains them not because they are of Rome but of an Ancienter date than that now corrupted Church and if they are therefore unlawful because they are used by her then every thing done in that Church is so which I suppose you will not say We only reformed from the Errors and Corruptions of that Church and not from what was Apostolical Primitive and Innocent because they used it And whatever Opinion these People would have others entertain of them yet their admired Mr. Calvin declares in express words that He would not have any Man think him so Austere or bound up as to forbid a Christian without any Exception to accommodate himself to the Papists in any Ceremony or Observance for says he further it is not my Purpose to condemn any thing but what is clearly evil and openly vicious But for a full Answer to all you Object against us upon this score I refer you to the Case of Symbolizing with the Church of Rome by Dr. Eowler our present Bishop where he quotes those very words of Mr. Calvin ANSWER Sir we desire not Separation but Reformation for I hope we have all of us so tender