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A25451 Animadversions upon Mijn Heer Fagels letter concerning our penal laws and tests with remarks upon that subject, occasioned by the publishing of that letter. 1688 (1688) Wing A3204; ESTC R37289 44,038 32

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do Wherein His Majesty proposes a due regard to be had to the Consciences of His Subjects in reserence to their Religion when they are required to acknowledge that Duty which they owe to their Civil Soveraign And this is so much the rather worthy imitation in Civil Constitutions because it is after the Example of God in reference to Religious Constitutions That no particular Persons may be Condemned of such Crimes as are charged upon the Church in general Terms whereof they are Members if so be they have kept and can purge themselves from the Crimes objected This appears plainly by such Transactions as relate to the Church as well under the Law as in the days of the Apostles when many Corrupt Doctrines and Practices were crept in amongst them These Churches and some particular Persons in their Communion were treated in different manner by the Prophets and Apostles And though the Churches in general or the Ruling part of them have been severely reprehended and threatned to be punished of God except they repented for teaching or permitting such Corrupt Doctrines and Practices yet such of their Communion who kept themselves pure have alwaies been distinguished from such as were Corrupt For instance In the general Defection from the Purity of GOD's Worship in the Reign of King Jeroboam some good thing is noted to be in his Son. What greater Corruption and Persecution of God's Servants than in the Reign of King Ahab Yet even then Seven Thousand that had not bowed their Knee to Baal though kept so obscure as to any open Witness bearing to the true Worship of God that the Prophet Elijah reckoned himself to be alone and Obadiah the Governour of the King's House signalized for his fear of GOD and secretly nourishing great numbers of his Prophets The Last of the Prophets as he is placed in the Scripture Records before the Incarnation of Christ reproves the Priests whose Lips should keep Knowledge for departing out of the way causing many to stumble at the Law and corrupting the Covenant of Levi Judah and Israel for committing abominations yet takes notice that there were some who feared the Lord and thought on His Name for whom a Book of Remembrance was written that there might be a future discerning by men between the Righteous and the Wicked In the daies of our Saviour upon Earth the Doctors of the Law Scribes and Pharisees had made void the Commands of God by their Traditions multiplying outward Coremonies under a shew of Sanctity and being inwardly unclean and full of Hypocrisie The Question is put among themselves Which of the Rulers or Pharisees have believed on Him Yet upon a Scrutiny we find Joseph an honourable Counsellor Nicodemus a Pharisee and Ruler and many among the Chief Rulers who believed on our Lord-Among the Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in the Apocalyps the Church of Thiatira is in goneral commended for her Charity Service Faith Patience and Works And the last to be more than the first yet the Angel of that Church is reproved for suffering salse Doctrines and Fornications to be taught and committed amongst them And such as did so and all that committed Adultery with them are threatned by the Lord with great Tribulations and Death except they repent But the rest of her Communion who did not know the depths of Satan which others Taught had none other burthen laid on them but that which they had to hold fast till the Lord came And when Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth is threatned with a sudden approaching and utter destruction there is mention of a Voice from Heaven to God's People saying Come out of her my People that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues If the state of the Seven Churches in Asia when these Epistles were directed to them respectively be compared one with the other great difference will appear as to their then present condition for the better or the worse in the Accompt of God. But there is no intimation of any Power given to the best of these Churches to Unchurch the worst so long as the Lord by His long-suffering Dispensations of Providence would continue them in the state of a Christian Church as to the outward form much less may any private Person presume by his Censures to Unchurch any Christian Church which was right in its first Constitution because that some ordinances which ought to be kept are therein wanting or that many Corruptions which ought to have been kept out are crept in amongst them Nor do I esteem it any disadvantage to the Truth that the same name which was once deservedly given to a Church because Right in its Constitution should be given also to such as continue in Succession though they vary in many points of Doctrines whilst they retain the same Essential form of a Church Nor that it includes any approbation of their Declension from the Truth any more than the terming of Jerusalem the Holy City did so when they had made void the Law by their Traditions And to all their other abominations had added a Conspiracy with the Gentiles to condemn and crucifie our Saviour But on the contrary it may be a ground for Reproof and a means of Conviction also That any Persons stile themselves or are stiled by others to be of such a Church as according to the Scripture-Records thereof was originally right in its Doctrine and Constitution if in any thing they deviate from the Truth there once profest But that which is evident to our present purpose from all these instances is That as on the one hand it is no excuse before GOD for any Persons to follow the Doctrines Commands or Examples of his Rulers in the Church or the Church in general when they deviate in Doctrine or Practice from the waies of God. So on the other hand no such universal Censure of any Church visible can be justified which condemns every individual Member thereof as guilty of the Crimes objected in general against the Society without leaving any room for such of them as can and are willing to clear themselves from the Crimes objected And if the Crimes objected against the generality of such as are in Communion with the Church of Rome or any other Church or Sect of Christians be that they teach or receive such Doctrines as are inconsistent with their Fidelity and Allegiance to their Civil Soveraigns The Question to be considered is Whether it be not more Just and Equal after the Example of King James the First to use such methods proper to the present season as he did formerly as may discriminate the Dutiful from the Disobedient in Civil things rather than any other methods which tend to Condemn all without distinction for the faults of many And if such a method were introduced and equal countenance given to all sorts of Christians as they may deserve it from their Superiours in