Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A58920
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Seasonable considerations
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1689
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Wing S2224; ESTC R34062
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11,081
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contrary displeasing Governments are not quite abolished Or will both or either of these please to have theirs taken away and submit to that of the Church of England If not how will all these Contraries be reconciled to patch up one Communion How shall the Ninth Canon be made conformable to the winning of Dissenters The Independents I believe will scarce be prevailed with to part with their own consociating Covenant nor be content with our Churches Communion but upon their own Terms And the same mixt Communion which was the occasion of their reparation will scandalize and hinder those Dissenters from uniting with us still must you therefore bring in their way of Discipline into the Church which the Church of England always has opposed whereby a Power must be given to some perhaps of the worst sort of Men to drive Myriads away from the participation of the Holy Supper Uni Ox. â—ct 9. 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 11 â—â—c A kind of Austerity which we with the University of Oxford may profess know not to be commanded by God but which seems to be repugnant both to the Rules of Prudence and Christian Love in general and to S. Paul's Counsel and Example in particular For he in a Church fill'd with Errors and Corruptions both in Faith and Manners after he had given command about one singular excommunicated Person who without shame had lived incestuously to the great disgrace and scandal of the Christian Religion thought it then sufficient to propose to the Church in a general Form of Instruction the great danger of unworthy Eating and that the Scrutiny of particular Consciences should be left to every Man 's own examination no power being given to any either Ecclesiastick-Pastor or Lay-Presbyter of examining and excluding from that Holy Communion whom they thought fit This was the Judgment of that famous University when Men were to be comprehended under the same Church And I believe the Scotch Discipline in this Point will be such as neither we they nor our Fathers are or were ever able to bear What will you do then ill this Point will you bring them into the Church and keep them from the Communion That I am sure you all know to be the greatest and most solemn part of Christian Profession And which has therefore by some been understood in that Article Of the Communion of Saints Must they barely then be hearers of the Word and not permitted the benefit of that without which Salvation cannot ordinarily be expected What Method therefore can be taken to unite us in that part of Communion but by receiving their austere Dictates of Discipline Which will hinder more and better Men from uniting with you in it They cannot be supposed now when all Concessions are made to 'em to be more easie and inclinable than when Severities were exercised and Ruin threatned them for Non-complyance nay they are never desired to yield any thing towards the meeting all must be done on the better side But when all these Concessions are made towards an Union do you now think that those will be won whole Separation is upon account of great Admiration to their Preachers without having those same Preachers lawfully admitted to exercise their Office here too What becomes then of your 10th and 36th Canon Must the required Subscriptions to the truth of the Articles lawfulness of the Liturgy and perpetual use of that and no other Form be now taken away to gratifie them Are not these looked upon as great Fences whereby to secure the Church from having bad Pastors of another Perswasion in it Must Episcopal Ordination be look'd on now no more necessary than theirs who never had Authority to confer it Or do you think those unconsecrated Preachers will use that Liturgy or teach that Doctrine to the truth and lawfulness of which they dare not subscribe But I refer you to satisfie more Questions on this head to the afore-cited Sheet Since then the Liturgy Homilies and Canons compiled by our judicious Forefathers some of whom were Confessors and Martyrs for that holy Religion were both composed for the greater edification of the Church removing all Differences confirming and establishing all matters of Faith must not we then of necessity suppose that the altering abolishing or annulling of 'em will have the contrary effects Shall one Age order all these things the strict observance of which was to promote the establishment of the Church and the following tho grown much wiser in the certain Truth of it take 'em away for the very same reason Our Church was usually thought affected with the very worst Maladies and Distempers and under the greatest Dangers when some of her Ministers not sticking close to their Subscriptions too near approached and conformed to the Humor of these infirm Dissenters but now it must be looked on as the greatest strengthning of it to have some of those ill affected infirm Persons make up a Member of her The Ecclesiastical Physicians used to raise her drooping Spirits by clearing her of all the ill Blood in her Veins But now these are to effect the same Cure by infusing more ill Blood and worse into her The best framed Constitution in the whole World is now to be taken away to make it much more great and sure without or else with a much weaker one â—n Ox â—ct 〈◊〉 â—â—c 〈◊〉 1 c If any thing should be altered in any Congregation why not in those who cannot defend themselves by Antiquity or Gospel Why in that where nothing unlawful unnecessary superstitious or hurtful is contained and whose Fault only is that they are commanded If the lawful Superior's Command make a thing that is lawful to be used to become unlawful what fruits can you expect in this your designed Labor Will not the same Authority of Convocation King Lords and Commons be the same thing to them now as it has been some Years last part Or will there be nothing done and ordered to be done in the Church now by the same Authority If not 't is likely to be a very glorious Constitution But if there must I know not how they will comply especially since to morrows Thoughts may alter the nature of this days Action and since they are so unfix'd and unsetled in their judgments And what good your Design will do with some sort of the Dissenters you may already see in a Letter concerning Toleration The Persons whom you are to bring in unto the Churches Communion are such as I believe are designedly comprehended under these beforementioned Third to the Tenth Canons If so then having been guilty of those Faults against the which those Rules are made they stand excommunicated by virtue of that Convocation Can such therefore be made Members of our Church who are excluded out of it by the whole Church Have the Canons left any way for their Restoration to the Church but by their repenting and publickly revoking those their impious Errors and are
they willing and ready to do it But then you will reply That a Convocation shall take off that Excommunication which a Convocation laid on so that they may then be lawfully admitted Members of the Church because that the same Power which made a Law can annul it again which remember anon But by what Authority do you pretend to restore them to the Church whom upon many cases can only be absolved and restored by the Arch-Bishop Can you his Inferiors without his leave do that which is only left for him to do And some of the Bishops and inferior Clergy do their Superior's Office him gainsaying But if you betake your selves to your own Authority again which will oblige him and comprehend him with the rest Consider with your selves whether the Metropolitan of all England have nothing to do in the Alterations of the Church And one thing I would not have you to forget that by this your acting you will make many Orthodox Sons or the Church who cannot allow of your Authority plead from your mixt Communion the unlawfulness too of joyning with you For they knowing by what Authority these Sects were excommunicated and that with such Persons till restored they are not to communicate with in any holy Offices and approving not of this Authority by which the Excommunication is pretended to be taken off will be mighty prone to shun those Congregations where such mixtures are allowed and separate from all the new model'd Churches And since I am fallen upon the Inconveniences which will fall upon those who dare be Orthodox let me desire you to take care of one thing That you be not the occasion of utter Destruction to many of your Brethren the Clergy For there may be found some who have sworn with such a Declaration as not to own any present lawful Authority who will be apt to entertain Doubts concerning the Lawfulness of your Authority And since the chief Primate and Metropolitan of all England and many more of the Bishops Souls enter not into your Consultations nor consent to your Injunctions they will be extremely puzzled to find out the Lawfulness and Authority of your Determinations And since that they know themselves obliged by their frequent Subscriptions contained in the 36th Canon to stand to these Canons and Homilies and to use this Liturgy and no other that we have already by a lawful Authority and knowing of the great Punishment due to Prevaricators after Subscription in the 38th Canon which tho it may not be inflicted yet will however presuppose a Fault which by a good Man will be as fearfully avoided and carefully shunned as if the Punishment was to follow they therefore will conscientiously stick to their former Subscriptions and suffer what their unkind Brethren not Enemies shall lay upon them And this liberty you must allow 'em from your own Principles or else lose your own Argument just above That no Power can alter or abrogate a Law but the same that made it A lawful King and all other the Essentials of a lawful Authority have obliged them to the defending of these Rules for ever unless alter'd again by the same lawful Authority that made them and if they cannot find such Authority in your Injunctions as to annul their former Obligations blame not their Reasons but your own Actions Whatsoever Reasons the Bishop of Rochester had to act in the late Ecclesiastical Commission yet when he saw it was levell'd at the Destruction of his Brethren he thought it his Duty then to desist from any further acting and rather suffer in the same Cause with them if so it had been the pleasure of his King All good Men applauded that Action of his Lordship and if I mistake not you would willingly have the repute of as good Men as He. Consider therefore before it be too late I am sure our Ancestors and perhaps some of you now living were of another mind once when the Church of England had great reason to have comply'd if necessity could have justified any unlawful Uniting For when the Sectaries would correct and abolish our Liturgy and Discipline and set up their own by Authority of Parliament and no other thing would as indeed it scarce ever will cause their agreement with us You well know how bravely the poor Church then withstood and opposed all such endeavours Many things then were sent forth to shew the Reasons of their Dissent and have ever since had the Esteem and Character of Truth and Greatness Some of which because not unfit for this present affair I 'll now in short recite to you and of the many then writ only chuse those of the University of Oxford and that for more Reasons than one Jud. Uâ—â— Ox. 〈◊〉 47. Seâ— We cannot for certain say they obey the Orders of the Sessions of both Houses without Sin they having not been approved by the King's consent 1st Especially those which not only command things contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm established by the unanimous consent of King Peers and Commons in Parliament 2ly But also because they annul and abrogate those Laws and Statutes For when 't is only in their power to cassate in whose 't is to make we cannot think it lawful for an inferior Power to rescind and annul that which was lawfully done by a Superior Stat. Eliz 3ly Especially when the whole Power of Jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical things is in most express Words of the Law for ever joyned and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And to whose Head that Diadem of right belongs no Subject ought to be ignorant Sect Nay say they We cannot comply to a Reforming the Religion of this Kingdom in its Doctrine Worship Discipline and Rule when Reformation necessarily and formally in its self includes a Change. 1st Without manifest Scandal to Papists and Separatists For 1st We shall desert the most just Cause which Bishops and Martyrs and other learned Divines have strenuously defended again ft the Enemies on both hands Haâ— sut Ap c. 2 2ly We shall give greater occasion to the Papists of defaming our Religion of objecting we know not where to have it and that 't is a Parliamentary Religion 3ly We shall acknowledg something in our Doctrine and Worship not consentaneous to the Word of God whence will be given a just excuse to the one of his Recusancy and to the other of separation from the Communion of our Church 2ly Nor can it be done without manifest Injury to our selves for thereby we give false Testimony against our selves if we reform that Religion as depraved or vicious 1st Which by our Subscriptions before we have atttested to be consentaneous to the Word of God of which thing we have never repented 2ly Which by a firm perswasion we believe not to be contrary to the Word of God in any of those Four or any other things 3ly Which we rationally conclude to be many ways better and more