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A63919
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A sermon preached before Sr. Patience Ward, upon the last Sunday of his mayoralty, Anno 1681 with additions / by John Turner ...
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Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing T3318A; ESTC R23557
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54,614
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86
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A SERMON Preached before Sr Patience Ward UPON THE Last SVNDAY of His MAYORALTY Anno 1681. With ADDITIONS By John Turner late Fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae LONDON Printed for Walter Rettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. SUMMA PRIVILEGII Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical 1640. Artic. 8. WHereas the Preaching of order and decency according to St. Paul's rule doth conduce to edification it is required that all Preachers as well beneficed men as others shall positively and plainly preach and instruct the people in their publick Sermons twice in the year at least that the Rites and Ceremonies now established in the Church of England are lawfull and commendable and that they the said people and others ought to conform themselves in their practice to all the said Rites and Ceremonies and that the people and others ought willingly to submit themselves unto the authority and government of the Church as it is now established under the King's Majesty And if any Preacher shall neglect or refuse to doe according to this Canon let him be suspended by his Ordinary during the time of his refusal or wilfull forbearance to doe thereafter I. COR. 14. 40. Let all things be done decently and in order THE unhappy breaches and differences among us in matters of Religion are at present the subject of universal Complaint and though nothing be more talked of than an Union among Protestants against the common Enemies of our Liberties as we are English men and of our Faith as we are Christians yet if we will believe mens Actions rather than their Words there is nothing that seems less heartily to de desired or if you will give me leave to speak a little plainer for it is not now a time to mince the matter with more solicitous Care and Industry to be avoided For my part I am not come hither to enflame those differences and if I were 't is twenty to one but I should lose my Errant for they are so great already that perhaps they are incapable of being encreased But if you will allow me that liberty which every man now pretends to as his birthright that is to spend my private opinion about the publick Concerns I will put you in a way by which this blessed Union can onely be effected and that is by keeping up strictly to the Discipline of the Church and by doing all things decently and in order We have almost every day many excellent Discourses delivered in the Pulpit to persuade us to mutual Charity and Forbearance with one another and indeed this is in a manner the whole design of Christianity to produce in us those calm and peaceable dispositions of mind which are best fitted to make us happy in this life and to prepare us for the blessedness of that other state whose very nature consists in perfect Charity and perfect Peace Wherefore Saint Paul tells us plainly that without charity which is the very bond of Peace and of all vertues all our pretences to Religion and all our attainments in it our proficiencie in spiritual knowledge and our super-errogation if that were possible in good works will signifie just nothing at all though I speak with the tongue of men and Angels saith he and have not charity I am become as sounding brass or a tinckling Cymbal and though I have the gift of prophecie and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity I am nothing nay though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity it profiteth me nothing And if to the Testimony of St. Paul you will add the greater Authority of our Saviour himself he makes reciprocal Charity and Love to be the distinguishing mark and character of his Disciples By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another If therefore this Charity which is so essential to a Disciple of Christ that he cannot be so without it if the Vnion of the spirit in the bond of peace can be preserved under differing denominations of different Sects and Parties notwithstanding the different external forms and circumstances of Divine Worship if all or any of those pious and learned Exhortations which have been made to persuade you to this Christian temper can have that good effect which is intended by them notwithstanding the various forms of Church Government and the diversity of all other outward appendages and ceremonies of publick Worship if we can fear God and honour the King and love one another as well and as heartily in the midst of these differences as if there were no such things to be found among us then by my consent let all the Ecclesiastical Enclosures be laid open and let every man worship God so he do but worship him in spirit and in truth and believe aright as to the fundamental Articles of the Christian Faith according to his own particular humour and fancie because by gratifying such an harmless though unaccountable humour there can no inconvenience follow but by disturbing and crossing it there may and therefore the ends of Religion will be better served by a diversity in Worship than by an uniformity of it But now on the contrary if it should prove true as it will most certainly if either Experience or Reason can be heard amongst us that the onely way to Unity and Peace is by an Uniformity of Discipline and Obedience as to the external circumstances of Divine Worship then this great end being so necessary as it is for the procuring us all that Happiness which either this World or the next can afford us will justifie all the necessary means that can be used in order to the obtaining it Wherefore Uniformity being necessary as a means to Peace and yet being impracticable unless the Church be supposed to be invested with a Power of prescribing the external modes and circumstances of Obedience it follows plainly that the Church is actually invested with such a Power and that all its members are bound to obey its Prescriptions For the Topick of Experience it is not without some unwillingness that I mention it much less do I think it proper at this time and place to lay open the wounds of our late unhappy times or present you with a mournfull Scene of those Miseries and Distractions which neither can nor ought to be remembred without Amazement and Horrour But if you will every one of you retire into your own thoughts and ask your selves the question What it was that brought those dreadfull Calamities upon us that involved three flourishing and powerfull Kingdoms in Bloud and Slaughter and Confusion that made the Gods to dye like men and fall like one of the Princes while Slaves were set over
dare be confident in very many instances that the blind lead the blind and that they are not sensible of those dismal inconveniences to which their Separation is naturally exposed but in what I have just now said I chiefly reflect upon the sad experience of former times which is sufficient to convince us what the genuine tendencie of these new models is and I do no more question that the same causes if suffered to operate with the same freedom will have the same effect than I do whether humane nature and humane passions be the same now that they were twenty or thirty years ago which Consideration if all well-meaning but misguided Christians would seriously lay to heart I cannot doubt but it would soon have a very wonderfull effect upon the Peace and Settlement of these distracted Kingdoms by persuading all that heartily wish the Prosperity of Sion and pray for the Peace of this our spiritual Jerusalem to leave their separate Assemblies and betake themselves into the bosom of the Church which cannot behold so much goodness and sincerity so miserably misled and gon astray without all the concern that is natural to a distressed forsaken Mother and stands alwaies ready with her arms wide open and with an entreating voice and mind to receive them into her most tender and passionate embraces Some sort of Unity as to external Discipline is necessary to the consistence even of those lesser bodies nay the Quakers themselves who are much the most exorbitant of all Parties to be found among us yet they differ from others and agree with one another in nothing more than in a certain Formality peculiar to themselves And how much more desirable would it be that all Parties laying aside their respective heats and animosities which under such diversity of outward forms they so dangerously foment and carry on against each other should unite together under one common rule in such a blessed band of Peace and Love as would remove all our Jealousies and prevent all our Fears and make every man in the Streets in an unknown Face to meet his Guide his Companion and his own familiar Friend This is my first Answer to the Objection taken from the pretence of a Tender Conscience That an Uniformity of one sort or other is of absolute necessity to the peace of the Church which Uniformity since it cannot be obtained unless men could all jump into the same mind of themselves and continue in it when they had done it follows unavoidably that there is and must always be in the Church a standing Authority from whence the Sanctions of Discipline and Order shall receive their obligation I come now to give a more particular Answer to the Objection proposed and in that I shall consider in the general what the terms of this Uniformity must be or rather what kind of terms they are to which all Christian People are obliged to submit It must be granted therefore That though an Uniformity in Religious Worship be that which is above all things in this World the most passionately to be desired yet this being only in order to that great End to which all our endeavours and counsels ought to be directed the Eternal happiness and salvation of our Souls no terms of Uniformity ought to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own defence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or disturbance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authoriy that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisaical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the superfluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine