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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A66000 A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the lord mayor, and the Court of Aldermen, at the Guild-Hall Chappel on November the 23d. 1684 by Thomas Wagstaffe ... Wagstaffe, Thomas, 1645-1712. 1685 (1685) Wing W213; ESTC R34696 16,892 34

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do not know what they say they take their own unreasonable Frets and Discontents for Offence which notwithstanding in the Gospel-Sense is quite contrary 2. If the Matter of Offence be in things indifferent in their Nature where our Liberty is already determined we cannot forhare them tho our weak Brother should thereby be offended And this is our Case the things in Controversie we believe to be of an indifferent Nature and such as are in our Superiours Power to impose and when lawful Authority hath interposed we are no longer free and the things which are indifferent in their Nature are not now indifferent in their use we are under the binding Power of the Law and are obliged to observe them by Virtue of those Injunctions which command us to submit our selves to the Powers set over us And now in this Case what would they have us to do would they have us despise Authority and break thro the Laws this perhaps might please and satisfie them but sure they do not expect we should wound our own Consciences to heal theirs that we should Sin our selves to prevent Sin in them For if they do not we do believe we are bound in Conscience to obey our Governours in all things Lawful the things that occasion'd the Scandals the Apostle speaks of were as yet left undetermin'd and they might as well omit as use them But 't is not so with us we are tyed up by Laws and therefore if our Brethren should be offended we may be sorry but we cannot help it We may wish they were more Judicious and Understanding than to be scandaliz'd at Innocent Rites and we may take all the Care we can to inform them better but we must not therefore forbear them and disobey our Rulers we may have all Tenderness and Charity for them But Charity begins at home we cannot out of Love to them ruin our selves and neglect our Duty and make other Mens mistakes the Rule of our Consciences And this is the third Thing 4. I shall indeavour to make out that tho they are not offended by us yet they are really offended by the Leaders of the Separation And this will retort the Argument upon themselves For this purpose I shall need only to remind you That the formal Nature of Scandal is such a Behaviour of ours as whereby our Brother is lead into Sin And to make this good against the Heads of the Separation I shall premise and take for granted these three Things First That Obedience to Governours in all Lawful Things is a Duty 2. That Separation from a Lawful Communion from a Church whereof we are National Members and wherein we may Communicate without Sin is a Sin 3. That the Church of England is such a Church These three which might easily be made out but would take up too much time for the present Discourse and which I must now therefore take for granted But they being granted it will follow that those Persons who entice them from their Obedience and who lead them into Schism are the persons that really offend them i.e. these are the Men that Occasion them to Sin Those therefore that lead them into Conventicles and teach them to despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities those that make them believe two or three Ceremonies are as heavy as the Mosaical Yoke that by calling hard Names as Antichrist and Baal's Priests fright and scare poor Poeple from our Communion these are they that offend them that is who make them Sin and pervert them from their Duty Where therefore they learn to be proud and untractable to be Factious and Schismatical to be Seditious and Ungovernable there it is they must lay their Offence And if it be seriously enquired into whence it is that these Men have taken such an ill and Unrighteous Opinion concerning us and the things we use as to believe the Communicating with us will pollute and defile them this cannot be in the things themselves and 't is some what odd that Men should believe the Church of England is Popishly given which notwithstanding is and any man may know it that will the chiefest support of Protestanism and the greatest Bulwark against Popery in the World 't is strange that Men in their wits should think that whining and sighing that undigested thoughts and crude not to say nonsensical Expressions should be the Spirit of Prayer and more fit to express the Necessities of a Congregation than these that have been deliberately pen'd by the most Judicious and Godly in a Nation I say whence is it that Men take up such Unrighteous Estimates there is not one of a thousand of them that ever examined the truth of things or have any thing to say besides some scurrilous Expressions they take them upon trust and swallow down every thing their Leaders dictate and so they become offended and seperate from us and fly from our Communion And so long as they are made to believe that when we kneel at the receiving the Communion we are Idolaters that the Cross in Baptism is making new Sacraments that when they Communicate with us they shall joyn themselves to a Company of Jews Heathens or Papists these Men indeed are offended but wo be to them by whom such Offences come who raise up Bug-bears and scare-Crows and drive Christian People from what they are bound in Conscience to do these therefore that make them divide and separate that are always railing at an Innocent Church that feed their prejudices and what their Discontents that insinuate into the injudicious unstable and unsettled these how much soever they may humour and please them Are in truth the Persons that offend them that is that withdraw them from their Duty and Occasion them to Sin For 5. The Church of England hath upon no account given Occasion of Offence to any she hath not done any thing that may Discourage any Honest Man in the way of his Salvation But hath used all means to set up the Kingdom of Christ and to promote the Interest of Souls Her Doctrines are the same with the Gospel and the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints she hath preserved pure and deliver'd uncorrupted to her Children And those who are offended at these would likewise be offended at Christ if he was alive But this I shall not now need to insist upon it being not denyed by any except the wildest sort of Separatists But doth she not give Milk with one Breast and Poyson with the other tho' her Doctrines be pure yet the Liturgy and Ceremonies she imposes may pollute and defile our Consciences And this might be something if our Ceremonies were Numerous and Cumbersome if they were a Clog and Impediment to Piety and Devotion if they were invented and set up by our Church and not used by the best Christians in Ancient Times But if they are for their number few for their Nature fit and apt to promote Religion and God's Worship If