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A40807 Libertas ecclesiastica, or, A discourse vindicating the lawfulness of those things which are chiefly excepted against in the Church of England, especially in its liturgy and worship and manifesting their agreeableness with the doctrine and practice both of ancient and modern churches / by William Falkner. Falkner, William, d. 1682. 1674 (1674) Wing F331; ESTC R25390 247,632 577

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Gregory that in the use either of single or trinal Mersion there is sufficient Baptism And it is well observed by Strabo that if we must relinquish the use of all things which have been perverted there will nothing of this nature remain allowable And whereas God loseth no right of Soveraignty to any Creature by mans abuse it was not without good reason acknowledged and asserted by S. Austen that the Christians did lawfully use those Fountains where the Gentiles drew Water for their Sacrifices Theod. Hist l. 3. c. 14. and as Theodoret declareth they owned the same liberty under Julian the Emperour who designed to defile the Fountains and meats with Pagan pollutions 4. Obs 2. This position if granted would be such an Engine which would do more work than they who place it would willingly allow of and would extirpate divers useful things referring to religious worship which are ordered by humane Wisdom and Prudence Of all external things the individual Temple or Church in which corrupt Religion was performed may seem as much defiled thereby as any species of action or gesture can be and yet even the Directory declared Direct of the day and place of worship that such places are not subject to any such pollution by any superstition formerly used and now laid aside as may render them Vnlawful or inconvenient and S. Austen declareth Aug. Ep. 154. that even Idols Temples when their use is changed to the honour of God may be lawfully so employed as well as persons may be received to God who are converted to the true Religion Ecclesiastical revenues for the support of the Ministry and Universities have been and in the Romish Church still are abused as much as any other external thing to be the great support of a corrupt Religion and yet the continuance of these things is well allowed of by dissenters from this Church The same may be said concerning the times of attending upon the publick service of God Morning and Evening And notwithstanding the gross abuse of Bells in the time of Popery Mr. Rutherford declareth it unreasonable and groundless Of Scandal Qu. 5. Qu. 6. that thereupon they should be disused And if this position was admitted as doctrinally true the pretence of their convenient usefulness would be no better excuse on their behalf than was that Plea for sparing the best of the Amalakites Cattel that they might be a Sacrifice when God had utterly devoted them to destruction and therefore the admitting this position it self would be as the coming down of a violent torrent which instead of scouring the Chanel will overflow and drown all the Country 5. Obs 3. Where this is admitted the general grounds of the Protestant Reformation must be disowned Conf. Boh. Art 15. The Bohemian Church which led the Van openly professeth that such Rites and Ceremonies ought to be retained which do advantage Faith the worship of God Peace and order whomsoever they had for their Author Synodum Pontificem Episcopum Luth. Formul Commun pro Eccl. Witemb aut alium quemvis And both Luther and the Augustan Confession declare the like purpose and practice to have been in the German Reformation Conf. August c. 3. Abus de Missa Zanch. Epist l. 1. in Ep. ad Craton And Zanchy asserteth that this is the true way of reforming the Church which he wisheth all would mind after the example of the Bohemian Brethren not to root out every thing that was found in the Church of Rome but to reject what was fit to be rejected and to preserve what was fit to be preserved That this was designed in the Reformation of the Church of England appeareth from the Preface in the Book of Common-Prayer concerning Ceremonies from the Apology of the Church of England and from the Book of Canons Can. 30. expressing according to that Apology a very plain Declaration hereof 6. The Arguments urged for the proof of this position are such as do not need any long answer For whereas Jehn his breaking down the House of Baal is commended in the Scripture and neither he nor Jehoiada reserved the House of Baal to be a place of Synagogue worship This action might be necessary for the effecting a reformation and the disentangling the people from their Idolatry and upon a like account Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen Serpent Aug. de Civ Dei l. 10. c. 8. which God himself had appointed when the people did colere eum tanquam idolum give worship to it as to an Idol as S. Aug. expresseth it and to the same end the ancient Christians in some special Cases where they feared that the continuance of the Idols Temples might tend to uphold the honour of the Idol Eus de Vit. Const l. 4. c. 39. did raze them to the foundations and sometimes erected anew Christian Churches in their places But besides this the Jews had such positive Laws as these Thou shalt quite pluck down all their high places Num. 33.52 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places where the Nations served their Gods Deut. 12.2 Ye shall destroy all their graven images Deut. 7.25 Ch. 12.3 and the proper extent of these Laws enjoined them utterly to destroy all Monuments and places formerly used to Idolatry out of the land of Israel But whereas no such positive commands are given to Christians if they should think themselves bound to follow these Jewish Patterns Tr. of Scandal Q 6. Mr. Rutherford himself condemneth them as Judaizing in this particular 7. And when God commandeth the Israelites that they shall not do after the doings of the land of Egypt and the Land of Canaan Ibid. Q 7. Lev. 18.3 which Mr. Rutherford objecteth against our Rites The design of that place is that the Israelites ought to be guided by the holy Laws and Commandments of God in their Conversations and not to follow the debauched examples of other Nations mentioned in the following part of that Chapter nor the abominable idolatries of their worship Hook Eccles Polity l. 4. Sect. 6. But in matters in themselves lawful where God had given them no particular Ceremonial commands to the contrary they were not tyed to disclaim all expedient things practised by other Nations in civil actions they might eat bread and drink water yea plow and reap in the same manner with other Nations Ex. 34.13 Num. 25.2 and in circumstances of Religion though sacrificing and bowing were manifestly rites of adoration used by idolatrous Nations before the giving the Law they were still received under the Law and appointed thereby and though the Philistines had long before the time of David an House or Temple of Dagon for the place of their Sacrifice Judg. 16.23 29 30. 1 Chr. 10.10 Davids purpose of building an House or Temple to the Lord was never the less allowable 8. But besides this it is chiefly to be considered that the things designed for the matter of this objection
lawful and expedient to be unlawful upon such evidence which they apprehend to be full and sufficient and thereupon cannot yield to practise these things it must be considered that it is but the common attendant of mans being fallible that he should out of respect to a greater good bear some outward inconvenience as the result even of his most innocent errours Thus in secular matters he who meerly mistaketh the right way of legal proceedings about his own cause may suffer some damage thereby and though his case may herein deserve pity yet it is better he should sustain this consequent of his own mistake than that no rules and orders of Law should be observed And the same may be said of matters Ecclesiastical 25. 2. If the Rules above-mentioned be observed they will direct how men may generally practise things lawfully enjoined according to right principles of Conscience But if they be not observed men must either resolve to follow their own imaginations in things they understand not which is a manifest way of errour and walking in the dark or else they must in these things practise according to the directions of those who speak most plausibly and takingly to their affections and are also strict in their lives but this both over-looketh the duty of obedience and the due relation to guides and teachers and is a very probable way to misguide men both in this and in other Cases By following this rule or rather by being taken in this snare many anciently embraced the monstrous positions of manicheism perswaded thereto by Faustus who had eloquium seductorium as S. Aug. ealleth it the enticing eloquence of seducing Aug. Conf. l. 6. c. 3 6 13. and whose words were observed by the same Father to have a more pleasing and delightful sweetness than the eloquence of S. Ambrose which was more learned and substantial Baron ad An. 377. n. 7. and those who embraced that impious Heresie were always talking of God and Christ and the holy Spirit the Comforter And to be guided in opinions or doctrines by such respect to persons can be no safe way of conduct because God hath not directed Christians thereto for as to expression Luther accounted Julian the Pelagian to be a better speaker and Orator than S. Augustine Luther Judicium de Erasmo Tom. 2. and as to practice Nazianzene declared even of the Macedonians who denyed the Divinity of the Holy Spirit Naz. Orat. 44. that they were persons whose lives were to be admired though their Doctrines were not to be allowed And therefore that more ancient rule of Tertullian is of necessary use Non ex personis probamus fidem sed ex fide personas that we are not to examine and esteem the Faith by the persons but the persons by their Faith Therefore the best way to be rightly established is by having a Conscientious regard in the first place to the evidence of manifest truth clearly discerned and in the next place to spiritual guides and teachers it being one end why God appointed Church Officers Eph. 4.11 14. that we be henceforth no more Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine SECT IV. Of Ecclesiastical Rites which have been abused in any corrupt way of worship 1. It is acknowledged that some gesture garment and action though not the same individually but of the like kind or physical nature established in the Church of England hath been ill used in the Church of Rome and this hath been much of old and by some of late objected against these appointments Now we do assert that the worship of God who is a jealous God is to be preserved pure and not mixed with any sinful defilement whatsoever whether of Idolatry or superstition and that things otherwise indifferent which either in the design of them who use them or in their own present tendency do directly promote or propagate such corruptions do in that Case become things unlawful Hence that which was in it self indifferent and was used in the Pagan Idolatry might upon good grounds be disclaimed as unlawful to Christians by Tertullian and other ancient Writers where the present use among Christians might appear to countenance and confirm those Idolatrous practices But that the use of things in themselves lawful and expedient and known to be ordered to a lawful end and purpose should be condemned as sinful because these things or the like are or have been otherwhere sinfully abused is a position by no means to be admitted Concerning which in general besides what shall be added concerning our particular Rites Ch. 4. I shall content my self with these three Observations 2. Obs 1. This position is not consistent with the principles of Christian practice It is a ground of hope in the Gospel Regeneration that those bodies and Souls which were once abused to the service of false Gods and Devils as according to Gr. Nazianzen was once the Case of S. Cyprian Naz. Orat. 18. and according to S. Paul of the Corinthians Thessalonians and others 1 Cor. 12.2 1 Thes 1.9 and to the service of sin as were the members of the Roman Church Rom. 6.17 18 19. may yet find acceptance with God in serving him Surely none can think that S. Pauls tongue was not to be allowed to preach the Gospel because it had been abused to blaspheme nor is it amiss observed by Durandus Dur. Rational l. 1. c. 1. Sect. 33. that among other Scriptures there is a principal use made in the Church of God of what was written by David who was guilty of Adultery S. Matthew who was a Publican and S. Paul who was a persecutor and blasphemer and among the Fathers of S. Augustine who was a Manichee And surely it is much more incredible that through the ill use of some the whole Species of actions gestures and things should become unlawful and unclean Can any possibly imagine that if other men have or do lift up their Eyes to Heaven to adore the Sun or Moon or bow down their knees to give religious worship to an Idol or to Saints and Angels this must render our lifting up our eyes to Heaven in the worshipping of God or bowing our knees in Prayer to him to be sinful Or may not one man lawfully make use of the light of the Sun to read the holy Scriptures because another maketh use of it to commit Villanies or did Judas his Kiss make the kiss of Charity sinful 3. As Sozomen reporteth Sozom. Hist Eccl. l. 6. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 single Mersion in Baptism was used by Eunomius who disowned the Trinity and the threefold Mersion which was the more general ancient Custom was abused in Spain as Walafridus Strabo relateth to express thereby a denyal of one Essence in the three Persons of the Trinity upon which occasion the Council of Toledo enjoined single Mersion in Spain Conc. Tol. 4. c. 5. still declaring according to S.