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A47967
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A letter concerning the matter of the present excommunications
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Owen, John, 1616-1683.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing L1353; ESTC R9567
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11,968
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37
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with Laughter Indignation and Confusion and if Dissenters are to be destroyed it is desired that the work were left unto the Penal statutes which as now prosecuted and interpreted are sufficient for it rather than that the name of Religion and a Divine ordinance should meerly for that end be exposed to contempt The last thing that I shall trouble you with at present is the consideration of the persons against whom the present Excommunications are blustered with the pretended causes of them These are they whom they call Dissenters concerning whom we may enquire what they are and the cause of this pretended Ecclesiastical severity towards them And as unto the first part of the enqury They are such as believe and make open profession of all the Articles of the Châ—istian Faith they do so as they are declared in the Scripture nor is the contrary charged on them There is nothing determined by the ancient Councils to belong unto Christian Faith which they disbelieve nor do they own any Doctrine condemned by them They profess an equal interest of Consent in the Harmony of Protestant Confessions with any other Protestants whatever They own the Doctrine of the Church of England as established by Law in nothing receding from it nor have they any novel or Uncatholick Opinion of their own It is therefore utterly impossible to separate them from the Communion of the Catholick Church in Faith or to cast them from that Rock whereon they are built thereby They do also attend unto Divine Worship in their own assemblies and herein they do practise all that is agreed on by all Christians in the world and nothing else for they do not only make the Scripture the sole Rule of their Worship so as to omit nothing prescribed therein to that purpose nor to observe any thing prohibited thereby but their Worship is the very same with that of the Catholick Church in all ages nothing do they omit that was ever used by it nothing do they observe that was ever condemned by it and this must be the principle and measure of Catholick Union in Worship if ever there be any such thing in the Earth to expect it in any other observances is vain and foolish Offering Prayers and Praises to God in the Name of Jesus Christ reading the Holy Scripture and expounding of it singing of Psalms to God preaching of the Word with the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper in a Religious Observation of the Lords Day unto these ends all according as God doth enable them by his Spirit is the Sum and Substance of the Worship of the Catholick Church wherein all Christians are agreed These things the Scripture doth prescribe and these things the Church in all ages hath observed All differences about this Worship which have filled the World with inhumane contentions arose from mens Arbitrary Addition of Forms Rites Modes Ceremonies Languages Cringings Adorations which they would have observed in it whereof the Scripture is silent and Primitive Antiquity utterly ignorant And it may be it will be one day understood that the due observance of this Catholick Worship according as God enableth any thereunto leaving others at liberty to use such helps unto their Devotion as they shall think meet is the only Communion of Worship in the Church which the Scripture requires or which is possible to be attained About the imposition of other things there ever were since they were and ever will be endless contentions Wherefore these Dissenters practising nothing in the Worship of God but what is approved by all Christians particularly by the Church of England omitting nothing that either the Scripture or Catholick tradition directs unto they are notwithstanding this pretended Excommunication secure of Communion with the Catholick Church in Evangelical Worship Moreover they plead that their conversation is unblamable that they are peaceable in the Civil Government and useful among their neighbours if they do evil in these things let them that prosecute them bear witness of the evil but if they do well why are they smitten If they can be charged with any immoralities with any disobedience unto the Rule and Precept of the Gospel those by whom they are thus prosecuted are highly concerned if not in Conscience yet in Honour and Interest to manage the charge against them that some countenance may be given unto their Proceedings For the Law is not made as penal for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient for the ungodly and for sinners for unholy and profane and if it be otherwise with the Laws about these Excommunications they neither belong to nor are derived from the Law of God There are indeed great clamours against them that they are Schismaticks and Separatists and things of the like nature that is that they are Dissenters But in this case the whole force of any inference from hence is built on this supposition That it is the Will of Christ that those who profess Faith in him and Obedience unto him unblameably should be excluded from an interest in and participation of these Odinances of Divine Worship which are of his own Institution who will not comply with and observe such rights and practises in that Worship as are not so but confessedly of humane invention But no colour of proof can be given hereunto for it is directly contrary unto express Scripture-Rule to the Example of the Apostolical Churches and unheard of in the world before the branded Usurpation of Victor Bishop of Rome An Assertion of it is to prostitute the Wisdom Authority and Love of Christ towards his Disciples unto the wills of Men oftentimes pre-possessed with Darkness Ignorance and Superstition and other lusts as shall be more fully manifested if there be occasion Let any colour be given unto this supposition from Scripture or Antiquity and the whole cause shall be given up yet thus is it and no otherwise in the matter of the present Excommunications Persons of all sorts every way found in the Faith unreprovable in the Catholick Worship of the Gospel professing Love and Obedience unto Jesus Christ without blame are excluded what lies in them who manage these Ordinances of Divine Worship which the Lord Christ hath appointed and injoyned without pretence of any other cause or reason but only their not observance in that Worship of what he hath not appointed He that can believe this to be the Will of Christ neither knoweth him nor his Will as it is revealed in his Word and the Consciences of men are sufficiently secure from being concerned in that wherein such an open defiance is bid unto Evangelical Precepts and Rules with Apostolical Examples And further to manifest the iniquity of these Proceedings whilst these Dissenters are thus dealt withal all sorts of Persons ignorant profane haters of Godliness and openly wicked in their lives are allowed in the full communion of the Church without any disciplinary admonition or controul But as this serves
A LETTER Concerning the MATTER of the PRESENT Excommunications LONDON Printed for Benjamin Alsop at the Angel and Bible in the Poultry over-against the Church 1683. ERRATA Page 5. line 17. read these Excommunications p. 10. l. last r. this Work p. 11. l. 17. for by them r. to them p. 13. l. 1. for by r. in p. 20. l. 6. r. demands l. 16. for this r. the. p. 27. l. 5. for these Ordinances r. these Excommunications from those Ordinances p. 32. l. 11. r. as much as A LETTER Concerning the Matter of the Present EXCOMMUNICATIONS SIR YOU judg aright That at my last being in London I did consider the unusual hurry of Excommunications against those called Dissenters and because of the novelty of the proceedings therein I did moreover endeavour my own satisfaction as unto the design causes and ends of them And I found it a thing easily attainable without difficulty or curiosity of enquiry For whereas there is no covering of Religion nor any thing appertaining thereunto save only a Name or Title cast upon them they openly discover themselves of what sort they are and what they belong unto And among many other indecencies wherewith they are accompanied one seemed to me to be very notable and this is the collection of whole droves together by Summons and Citations then dealing with them in such a clamorous manner as makes a representation of a Publick Market or Fair for chaffering about Souls But that I found which did principally affect the minds of men was the event which these proceedings do tend unto and will produce and they generally concluded that they would be highly prejudicial if not ruinous unto all Trust and Trade among the peaceable Subjects of the Kingdom For they said that if the Commissaries would do as in the old Roman Proscriptions in the time of Sylla and of the Triumvirate afterward and set up the Names of all that were to be proceeded against in Publick Tables to be exposed to the view of all those concerned might shift for themselves as well as they could and the residue of mankind might be at liberty to follow their own occasions but whilst they retain an unmeasurable reserve in their own breasts as unto persons to be ruined by them so as that they know not whose names their own or of those with whom they are concerned they shall see the next day affixed on the Church Doors in order unto Excommunication it deprives them of all repose in the Law of the Land or Publick Justice and breaks all their Measures about the disposal of their Affairs How far this is already come to pass you that are in the place know better than I but sure I am that the very Rumor of it gives a general discomposure unto the minds of Men. Hearing no other discourse of these things I was somewhat surprized with your Letter wherein you required my thoughts what influence these Excommunications may have on the Consciences of them who are so excommunicated for I did not think there would have any question been made about it But since you are pleased to make the enquiry I shall for the satisfaction of my respects unto you tho as unto any other end I judg it needless give you a brief Account of my Judgement concerning these proceedings which is the same for the substance of it with that of all sober persons with whom I ever conversed Excommunication is the Name of a Divine Institution of Christ wherein and in whose due and just administration the consciences of Christians are or ought to be highly concerned And this as for other causes so principally because it is the only sure representation of the future Judgment of Christ himself he did appoint it for this end that so it might be Providential dispensations are various and no certain Judgment can be made on them as unto the final and eternal determination of things and causes No man knoweth love or hatred by the things of that nature that are before him But this is ordained by the Law of Christ to be a just Representation of his future Judgment with a Recognition of the causes which he will proceed upon Therefore it is divinely instructive in what he himself will do in the great day it is futuri judicii praejudicium But he will scarcely be thought well advised who shall send men to Doctors-Commons to learn the way and manner of Christs Judgment of his Church with the causes which he will proceed upon He giveth himself another account of it Mat. 25.32 unto the end of the Chapter of what he there declares there is neither name nor thing found among the men of these practices which we treat about The mentioning of them would be looked on as a sedition against their Authority or else make them ashamed as a thief when he is found But for any sort of person to undertake the administration and execution of the sentence of Excommunication against others not making it their design to represent the Judgment of Christ towards impenitent Sinners is to bid defiance to him and his Gospel Wherefore no person whatever wise or unwise good or bad can be concerned in the Excommunication in conscience or on a Religious account I speak not only of them who are forced to suffer by them but of them also by whom they are administred and denounced For it is impossible that men should be so far forsaken of all understanding as to imagine that the proceedings thereins do belong unto the Gospel or Christian Religion any otherwise but as a debasement and corruption of it neither is any man ever the less of the Communion of the Church of England by these Excommunications tho he may by force be debarred from some advantages that belong thereunto Neither is the Communion of any Church to be valued from which a man may be really and effectually expelled by such means For this Excommunication is not only null as to the efficacy of its sentence on the account of its mal-administration but it is not in any sence that which it is called and which it pretends to be Idols are called Gods but we know they are nothing in the World So is this proceeding called Excommunication but is no such thing at all If a man should paint a Rat or an Hedg-hog and write over it that it is a Lion no man would believe it so to be because of its magnificent Title All that it can pretend unto is a political Engine used to apply the displeasure of some upon an accidental advantage unto them whose ruin they design and therein a satisfaction unto Revenge for discountenancing their supposed Interest That there is any acting in it of the Authority of Christ any Representation of his love care and tenderness towards his Church any thing that is instructive in his Mind or Will any praeludium of the future Judgment no man I suppose does pretend nor I am sure can do so without reflecting