Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A34537
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The interest of England in the matter of religion the first and second parts : unfolded in the solution of three questions / written by John Corbet.
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Corbet, John, 1620-1680.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing C6256; ESTC R2461
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85,526
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278
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Party which cannot be rooted out but will be always considerable either as friends or enemies especially when those tearms do comprise some part of their victory that should accept them Let the Episcopal Clergy observe the spirit of the Nation and the condition of the Times that they may rightly comprehend the measure of their own hopes The English are a generous Nation and as they delight in the Majesty and Glory of their King so also in the splendid condition of subordinate Governours that their manner of living be in some sort conformable to the dignity and opulency of the Nation Accordingly they seem to take pleasure that the Ecclesiastical State be upheld by a fair Revenue and competent Dignity yet with moderation For if the Clergy do rise to Princely or Lordly wealth and power they may become the envy of the Nobility and Gentry Let them remember they stand by Grace not by their own strength but by their Prince His Favour The Nation in general may be taken with a grave and masculine decency in all Sacred things sutable to their spiritual Majesty but I make a Question whether in this noon-tide of the Gospel they will fall in love with excessive gaudiness pompous shews and various affected gestures in Sacred Administrations and not rather esteem them vanities too much detracting from the dignity and purity of Gospel-Worship In this noon-tide of the Gospel the Bishops cannot magnifie their Office but by other courses then what were taken in former and darker times Meer formalities will no longer dazle our eyes We shall think they have work of an higher nature then to look only to the observation of outward Forms and Rites ann Ceremonies they must make a nearer approach to the Presbyterian practice in the constant Preaching of the Word in the strict observation of the Lords Day in keeping a true watch over the Flock and in correcting the real scandals that break forth in mens conversations And if they walk in these paths the Prelatists and Presbyterians will not be far asunder Perhaps the friends of Prelacy may imagine that in this coalition Presbytery may at length undermine Episcopacy but reason shews that Episcopacy will stand more firm in conjunction with Presbytery then by it self alone In the body natural there is some predominant humour as sanguine cholerick melancholy or phlegmatick yet none of these do subsist alone without the mixture of the rest in a due temperament In like manner the Body Ecclesiastical may be of several complexions or constitutions as Episcopal or Presbyterial according to the predominant quality Now if the Presbyterian Churches would become more firm and stable by the superintendency of one grave President and the truth is in all Presbyteries there appeareth some Episcopacy either formal or vertual so an Episcopal Church may be judged more firm and stable by a Bishops superintendency in consociation with assistant Presbyters And to remove the fear of the incroachments of Presbytery it is easie to discern that Episcopacy if it contains it self within moderate bounds will be always in this National Church the predominant quality In the Conclusion of this Discourse let me offer these few Essayes concerning the pathes of peace Section XLV The glorifying and pleasing of the highest Potentate and universal Monarch and the eternal happiness of immortal precious souls are the most noble and blessed ends of Government Let his Majesties Reign be happy and glorious in attaining these ends A Christian King esteems it the excellency of his regal Power to hold and manage it as the servant of Jesus Christ to be a Protector of the true Church the Body of Christ the Lambs wife for whose redemption Christ dyed and for whose gathering and perfecting the world is continued It is the Character of this true Church to make the holy Scriptures the perfect rule of their faith and life to worship God in spirit and in truth according to the power and spiritual worship of the Gospel to walk by the rule of the new Creature in spiritual mortification and crucifixion to the world to study holinesse in sincerity to strive to advance it in themselves and others and to have influence upon others unto sound knowledge faith humility godlinesse justice temperance charity The true Church lies in the middle between two extreams Formalists and Fanaticks They are of circumspect and regular walking no way forward in attempting or desiring alterations in a civil State A Prince doth hold them in obedience under a double bond For they know they must needs be subject not onely for wrath but for conscience sake Indeed we will not conceal that in lawful wayes they assert that liberty which is setled by the known Laws and fundamental Constitutions the maintaining whereof is the Princ's as much as the Peoples safety Section XLVI That being the happiest politie that is founded in true Religion and most fully suited to mens everlasting concernments it greatly behoveth Governors to mark and avoid those things which bring Religion into contempt and tend to the increase of Atheism and infidelity The many various Sects and absurd opinions and fancies and pretended Revelations of these latter times have much lessened the reverence of Religion in England This is a great evil and much observed and decryed by the present times There is another evil no less injurious to the honour and estimation of Christian piety to wit Ceremonial strictness with real prophaness or at the most but lukewarmness in the real part of Religion And this is the true state of the Papacy by occasion whereof Atheists have so abounded in Italy Machiavel observes in his time that Christianity was no where less honoured then in Rome which is the pretended Head thereof Let this evil be seen prevented and remedied that the sacred name of the Church be given to a society not carnal but truly spiritual according to that of the Apostle We are the Circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh Section XLVII It is the preheminence of His Majesty as General Bishop of the Land for so He is in a political sence to visit His people of all ranks by His prudent inspection And it is worthy of His chiefest care and search to know whether every Pastor be resident with his own Flock and doth constantly on every Sabbath teach them the good Knowledge of God what Pluralists do seize upon several Congregations thrusting or barring out laborious Ministers and leaving the sheep in the hands of one who is a meer mercinary and careth not for them whether Preaching in Cathedral Churches be more frequent since the reviving of Deans and Chapters then before when those places were supplied by one or two stipendiary Ministers whether the Precincts of Cathedrals be the purest parts of the Land and the Members thereof the purest parts of the Clergy as in reason they ought to be In all His Majesties superintendency there is
and pull down but not to build up They do not hang in the air bur build upon a firm ground they have setled principles consistent with the rules of stable policy Contrariwise Fanaticks truly and not abusively so called do build castles in the air and are fit instruments to disturb and destroy and root out but never to compose and plant and settle for which cause their Kingdom could never hold long in any time or place of the world Upon this ground Presbytery not sectarian Anarchy hath been assaulted with greatest violence by the more observing Prelatists against this they have raised their main batteries this appeared formidable for it is stable and uniform and like to hold if once setled in good earnest This party do not run so fast but they know where to stop they are a number of men so fixed and constant as none more and a Prince or State shall know where to find them They do not strain so high but they consider withal what the Kingdoms of the world will bear and are willing to bring things to the capacity of political Government They can have no pleasure in commotions and alterations for order and regular unity is their way and therefore stability of Government and publick tranquility is their interest It is most unreasonable to object that the late wilde postures extravagancies and incongruities in Government were the work of Presbytery or Presbyterians The Nation had never proof of Presbytery for it was never setled but rather decryed and exposed to prejudice by those that were in sway and that in the more early times of the late Wars The truth of this matter is cleared by a passage of our late Soveraign in a Letter to his Majesty that now is All the lesser Factions were at first officious Servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and Military Success discovering to each their particular advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of uniform Religion pretended each to drive for their party the trade of profits and preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but of Presbytery it self Thus the joynt stock of uniform Religion was left and Presbytery neglected before the first War was ended Yea and those that stedsastly adhered to it were maligned and reviled by the exorbitant party for opposing their new models or agreements of the people Section XVII Neither can Sects or Schisms with any truth or justice be reckoned the Off-spring of Presbytery Consider the French Dutch Helvetian Churches how intire they keep themselves in Orthodox Vnity from the Gangreen of Sects and Schisms A wide Breach was once made in the Netherlands by Arminius and his Followers but after some years conflict it was healed by the Synod of Dort The Church of Scotland is inferiour to none in the unity of Doctrine and Church-Communion and their form of Ecclesiastical Policy and method of Discipline is very effectual to prevent the broaching of Errour King James in discourse with an English Bishop is reported to have rendred this account why so few Heresies and Errours of Doctrine are united and prosecuted to the publick disturbance of that Church Every Parish hath their Pastor ever present with them and watching over them and he with his Elders and Deacons hath a weekly meeting for censure of manners by which he perfectly knows his Flock and every abberation of them in doctrine practise and lest any heresie might seize upon the Pastor they have their Presbyters which meet together once also every week in the next chief Town or City and there they have their exercise of prophesying after which the Moderator asks the judgement of all the Pastors concerning the doctrine then delivered or of any other doubtful point then propounded and if the Presbytery be divided in their opinions the question is under an injoyned silence put over 〈◊〉 the next Synod which is held twice a 〈…〉 which the Pastors of that quarter or province do duly resort accompanied with their Elders and any question of doubt is either decided by that Assembly or with charge of silence reserved to a national Synod which they hold every year once whither come not the Pastors onely but the King himself or his Commissioners and some of all orders and degrees sufficiently authorized for determining of any controversie that shall arise among them Could the Bishops in former times procure a greater unity in the Church of England Whence therefore should this charge arise peradventure some Presbyterians have turned Sectaries Surely it would be taken for a weak arguing to say That Prelacy is the way to Popery because some Prelatists have turned Papists The truth is Sectarianism grew up in a Mystery of Iniquity and State policy and it was not well discerned till it became almost triumphant by Military successes But after that its growth and strength did manifestly appear Presbytery began to struggle with it and so continued until by the power of the Army it was inforced to sit down but never to comply Whereupon the tongues and pens of Sectaries were imployed against none more then the Presbyterians And I should be glad to hear of such bitter Invectives of the Papists against the Prelatists not that I rejoyce in the sin of the one or the suffering of the other but that the Protestant friends of Prelacy might more incline to their Protestant Presbyterian Brethren Surely the way to prevent the growth of the two utmost extreams is for the two middle parties to draw up and close together But however the world goes the Presbyterians shall ever keep as good a distance from the Sectaries or Fanaticks as the Prelatists shall from Papists And verily there is no greater bar against Fanaticism then the right Presbyterian principles as not to sever but joyn the written word and spirit for direction the spirit and use of Ordinances for Edification to erect a stated Church-Order and Discipline to allow to the Church a directive and to every Christian a discretive judgment to insist only upon Divine Scripture Warrant and to wave humane authority in matters of Religion For such is the temperament of these Maximes that they commend and require a distinct knowledge and illumination in the mind and in the affections lively motions and stirrings against Formality and blind Devotion and so do satisfie the minds of those who conceive that in true Religion there is spiritual light and life and power and also they shew the necessity of the written Word of constant publick Ordinances and private Exercises of Religion and of the direction and discipline of the Church all which do serve to settle the mind against dilusive impulses and wild fancies and raptures Section XVIII But of all the prejudices and scandals taken against this way there is none greater then this that it is represented as tyrannical and domineering and that those who live under it must like Issachar crouch under the burdens In