Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	church_n	world_n	5,052	5	4.5521	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26860	An answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlocke, confuting an universal humane church-supremacy aristocratical and monarchical, as church-tyranny and popery : and defending Dr. Isaac Barrow's treatise against it by Richard Baxter ; preparatory to a fuller treatise against such an universal soveraignty as contrary to reason, Christianity, the Protestant profession, and the Church of England, though the corrupters usurp that title.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1682 (1682)	Wing B1184; ESTC R16768	131,071	189

the Antecedent True Pastors have but the power to promote and order Gods worship but not to exclude or forbid it to any much less to all or 1000. without necessary cause 2. And then if Preaching and Hearing and Sacraments be ordinarily necessary to mens salvation then God hath left it to the will or power of the Bishops whether any of the people shall be ordinarily saved But that is not so 3. And then if the King should license or command us to Preach Pray and Communicate and the Bishop forbid it it were sin But that I will not believe unless the Cause more than the Authority make the difference To cooclude I hold that just use of the Keys is very necessary and that it is the great sin of England to reject it But that a false usurped use of excomunication hath been the incendiary of the Christian world which hath broken it to pieces caused horrid Schisms Rebellions Treasons Murders and bloody Wars I. The just use is 1. When a scandalous or great sinner is with convincing evidence told of his error and with seriousness yet with love and compassion intreated to repent and either prevailed with and so absolved or after due patience Authoritatively pronounced uncapable of Church-Communion and bound over to answer it at the Bar of Christ in terror if he repent not and this by the Pastor of that particular Church which either statedly or pro tempore he belongeth to 2. And when this is duly notified to such Neighbour-Pastors as he may seek Communion with and they agree not to receive any justly cast out by others but to receive and relieve the injured and falsly condemned 3. And when the King and his Justices permit not the ejected violently to intrude and take the Sacrament or joyn with the Church by force but preserveth forcibly the Peace and Priviledges of the Churches II. The excommunication that hath turned the Church into Factions and undone almost East and West is 1. When a Bishop because of his humane Superiory as Patriark Primate or Pope claimeth the power of excommunicating other Bishops as his Subjects whose Sentence must stand because of his Regent power 2. Or at least gathering a Council where he shall preside and that Council shall take themselves to have a Governing power of the Keys over the particular Bishop not only to renounce Communion with them themselves but to oblige all others to stand to their judicial Sentence 3. When Bishops shall meddle causelesly in other Bishops Churches and make themseves Judges either of distant unknown persons and cases or of such as they have nothing to do to try Yea judg men of other Countries or so distant as the Witnesses and Causes cannot without oppression be brought to their Bar. 4. When they disgrace Gods universal Laws of Communion as ins●ffici●nt and make a multitude of unnecessary ensnaring dividing Laws of their own according to which they must be mens Judges 5. When these Laws are not made only for their own flocks and selves but for all the Christian world or for absent or dissenting persons 6. When men excommunicate others for hard words not understood that deserve it not as to real matter 7. Or do it to keep up an unlawful usurped power over those Churches that never consented to take them for their Pastors and to rule where they have no true Authority but such as standeth on a forcing strength 8. When Lay-Chancellors use the Keys of the Church 9. When men excommunicate others wickedly for doing their duty to God and man or unjustly without sufficient Cause 10. When unjust excommunicators force Ministers against their Consciences to publish their condemnations against those that they know to be not worthy of that Sentence if not the best of their flocks 11. And when they damn all as Hereticks Schismaticks c. that communicate with any that they thus unjustly damn 12. When they dishonour Kings and higher Pwers by disgracing excommunications much more when they depose them 13. When they tell Princes that it is their duty to banish imprison or destroy men because excommunicate and not reconciled and make Kings their Executioners And so of old when a Bishop was excommunicate he must presently be banished And they say the Scots horning is of the same nature If all had been either banished or imprisoned that were excommunicate a●d unreconciled in the pursuit of the General Councils of old how great a diminution would it have made of the free Subjects of the Empire And if Princes must strike with the Sword all that stand excommunicate without trying and judging the persons themselves it is no wonder if such Prelates as can first so debase them to be their Lictors can next depose them He is like to be a great Persecuter that will imprison or banish all that a proud contentious Clergy will excommunicate As corruptio optimi est pessima I doubt not but a wise humble holy spiritual loving heavenly zealous patient exemplary sort of Pastors is the means of continuing Christs Kingdom in the World and such are the Pillars and Basis of Truth in the House of God as it is said of Timothy not of the Church as is commonly mistaken So an ignorant worldly carnal proud usurping domineering hypocritical sort of Pastors have been the great plagues and causes of Schism confusion and common calamity And that when Satan can be the chuser of Pastors for Christs Church he will and too oft hath ever chuse such as shall most succesfully serve him in Christs Name And I doubt not but such holy Discipline as shall keep clean the Church of Christ and keep off the reproach of wickedness and uncleanness from the Christian Religion and manifest duly to the flock the difference between the precious and the vile is a great Ordinance of God which one man cannot exercise over many hundred Parishes and unknown people But an usurped domineering use of excommunication to subdue Kings Princes Nobles and people to the Jurisdiction Opinions and Canons of Popes Patriarchs Prelates or their Councils I think hath done not the least part of Satans work in the world And I must tell you that I have lived now near 62. now near 66. years and I never saw one man or woman reformed or converted by excommunication and I hope I have known thousands converted from their sin by Preaching even by some that are now forbidden to Preach All that ever I knew excommunicate were of two sorts 1. Dissenters from the Opinions of the Bishops or conscientious refusers of their commands And these all rejoice in their sufferings applying Blessed are ye when they cast out your names c. say all evil of you falsly c. or they take their censure for wicked persecution The Papists laugh at their Excommunicators and say What an odd conditioned Church have you that will cast us out that never came in and because we will not come in 2. Ungodly impenitent sinners And these hate

be said for it as well as against it and I never met but with Two Objections which seemed to me worthy of much further search One was that seeing de facto Popery and high Prelacy have so far and long ruled in the Church whether it be credible that Christ would so permit it if he hated it and give his Church de facto no better government 2. Whether mens great proneness to discord make not Popery Italian or French a prudent course And to these 1. I am sure that Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil and save his people from their sins and make them holy a peculiar people zealous of good works and gather a Church of such out of the world and rule them in a Communion of Saints till he bring them to perfection Therefore I have great reason to suspect those men and that order and course of government which cherisheth ignorance and sin in Ministers and People and hunteth and silenceth faithful Ministers and suppresseth persecuteth tormenteth burneth the most conscionable Christians that for fear of offending God disobey them that turn serious Religion and spiriritual Worship of God into bodily exercises and meer Conformity to their wills and outward taking Sacraments and using commanded Ceremonies and words under the shadow whereof for 1000. years piety hath withered and impiety prospered Christ promised to be with his servants to the end of the world Mat 28.30 And I cannot but think that he is most with those that are most acquainted with his Gospel and most love him and obey him and are most holy and heavenly and walk not after the flesh but the spirit rather than with the ignorant fleshly worldly malignant Persecutors that set them against serious godliness and godly men § 3. And I take not any notices of the time present from any thing but certain experience nor of the Ages past from enemies or suspected but of the eldest times from all our common Church-history and of the last 1000 or 1200 years as to the worst part of their actions from their own greatest friends and flatterers such as Baronius Binnius Platina Petavius and others § 4. And the matter of fact I confess hath had much power on my judgment Had the Popes and Lording sort of Diocesans been promoters of love and holiness in the Church and not the woful scandal of it and the enemies of good men and serious piety I should have been stronglier tempted to own their form of government to be of God though I am assured that Nature maketh one man or one Council uncapable of proper government over all the earth I should never have opposed that which doth good But destruction silencing persecuting cruelties rebellions worldliness ignorance malignity and cherishing sin and suppressing piety and the very word of God I am sure are all the work of the Devil what name or titles soever are pretended for them § 5. And the fact being to me past dispute I quietly submit to the dreadful providence of God that permitteth it considering 1. The Church on Earth is no better than the Angels of Heaven were and if so many of the Angels kept not their first estate but fell by Pride what wonder if many Bishops do so 2. If Adam and Eve both fell from Innocency and that so soon it is not incredible that the Serpent should beguile some Bishops to depart from the simplicity that is in Christ. 3. And if the first born man Cain murdered his righteous brother by malignant envy for his true Religion it 's no wonder if some Clergy-men are such 4. And if the whole world so soon was drowned in wickedness that only Noah and his house were meet to be saved from the flood what wonder if the Church had too great a deluge of iniquity 5. And to be short if Noah himself fall after such deliverance and a Cham be cursed that had been saved and their posterity proved so bad that all the Canaanites c. must be destroyed if Sodom's flames too better warned Lot or his Wife and Children if Abraham have an Ismael and Isaac an Esau and Iacob envious Sons and two Murderers and two Adulterers If Israel sin and die in the Wilderness if Aaron after that he had seen make them an Idol if Nadab and Abihu die as they did if Eli's and Samuel's Sons proved all so bad and in the days of the Judges there were so many revolts and ruins if the first King Saul so soon revolted if David so fell and Absolom so sinned and Solomon himself If Ten Tribes so quickly broke off from David's house and left him but Two if those Two proved as bad as the Prophets tell us and went into Captivity And if the Nation rebelled against Christ and be cursed and scattered over the Earth what wonder if the Pope and proudest Prelate did corrupt the Church of God If Christs chosen Twelve had a Iudas among them if the rest strove who should be greatest if Peter denied him and they all forsook him and fled if Heresies swarmed in the Apostles days and Iewish Teachers would have subjected the Gentiles to Moses's Law if all forsook Paul in his Tryal and many accused him before and such as Diotrephes cast out the Brethren and prated maliciously against Iohn if Christ tell us of a little flock and not many Noble and great are called if it be as hard for the Rich to be saved as Christ saith if for Three hundred years the Church was a persecuted people and if the Patriarchs and Bishops themselves for many hundred years after accused one another in Councils and accused such Councils themselves of Heresies and other crimes as much as is yet visible they did why should I be scandalized at the badness of Bishops and Councils and the woful corruptions of the Church Especially considering 1. That it was chiefly but the worldly proud domineering sort that thus miscarried as the very Angels did 2. That God kept up still a great number of humble and holy Bishops and Presbyters that joined not in usurpations and pride with the rest 3. And that God blest their labours to the saving of so many Millions of souls and propagating true serious Religion to this day Yea some of the great Patriarchs themselves have been holy humble men 4. And when God preserved by an humble Ministry so many Christians as the Albigenses Waldenses and many among the Papists themselves from the liking and guilt of the Roman corruptions 5. And when God hath raised so learned humble and holy a Ministry to reform the Churches and blest their labours in Europe and specially in England as he hath done even those that Mr. Dodwell degradeth yea many pious Diocesans here and elsewhere who yet cannot prove their title by his pretended way of successive Canonical Ordinations nor durst have sworn that they had such a call § 6. I am sure that the work of Christ is the restoring of Gods Image holy

more than a Ceremony that knoweth it if the King command me to Preach at one hour or one place and the Bishop at another or to use for Uniformity such a Translation Metre Liturgy Utensils Garments c and the Bishops others I will obey the King before the Bishop But if either or both command me to sin I will obey neither so and if they would take me off from that which Christ hath made a real part of my own Office as commanding that I shall preach and pray in no words but such as they prescribe c. I think neither hath power to do this But Bishop Bilson of Christian Obedience and Bishop Andrews in his Tortura Toetis and Buckeridg of Rochester and Grotius de imprrio sum Potest circa Sacra have said so much of the Power of Kings about Religion as that I think I need not add any more And by the same Arguments that you will absolve me from obeying if the King forbid me to Preach by the same you absolve if the Bishop forbid me If I may disobey Constantius and Valens I may disobey Eusebius Nicomed Theognis Maris If I may disobey Theodosius junior Anastasius Zeno Iustinian I may disobey Petrus Moggus Dioscorus Severus c. But you will much cross your ●nds if you tell the Londoners that they may preach and worship God though the King forbid them but not at all if the Bishop forbid them For he that exalteth himself or is sinfully exalted by others shall be brought low If the reverence of the King were not greater in England than of the Bishops the consciences of many thousands would stick but little at disobedience There are so many cases first to be resolved As 1. Whether such Diocesans deposing all Parochial Churches and Bishops and reducing them to Chappels or parts only of a Church be not against Christs Law 2. Whether they destroy not the ancient order of particular Churches Bishops and Discipline 3. Who made their office and by what power 4. Who chose and called them to it 5. Whether their Commands be not null as contrary to Gods 6 How far Communion with them that silence hundreds of faithful Ministers and set up in their stead c. is lawful Many such questions the people are not so easily satisfied in as you are XI And the three last all set together look with an ill design The Preface to Dr. Rich. Cousins Tables tells the King That the Church-Government here is the Kings or derived from him and dependant on him and Grotius de Imperio sum potest proveth at large the Power of Kings circa sacra as doth Spalatensis and many more and that Canons are but good counsel till the King make them Laws And we know no Law-makers but the King and Parliament But if the Church be the Expounders of the Liturgy Rubrick and Canons Articles and Acts of Uniformity and out of Convocation-time the Bishops be the Church and the Archbishops be the Rulers of the Bishops that swear obedience to them this hath a dangerous aspect For then it is in the power of the Bishops if not of the Archbishops only to put a sense upon our 39 Articles Rubricks c. consistent with Popery or Heresie and so to change the Religion of the Kingdom without King or Parliament or against them at their pleasure And thus Officers of mans making who become a Church of mans devising may have advantage by this and the former Articles to destroy Godliness Christianity and Humanity Indeed by the Preface to the Liturgy the Bishop is made the Expounder of any thing doubtful in the Book and by the Index the Act of Uniformity is made part of the Book But this affrighteth me the more from declaring 1. Because I must consent to all the Penalties and Impositions of the Act it self 2. And the Bishop Exposition is limited so that it must be contrary to nothing in the Book Thus I have given you the reasons of my destructive Conference If I had been with you and we had been to enter upon any dispute that tendeth to satisfaction I would have endeavoured to avoid the common frustraters of Disputes 1. By ambiguous words 2. And subjects that are no subjects Therefore if you desire any such dispute I. I intreat you to write me down your sense of some terms which we shall frequently use and I will do the like of any at your desire As what you mean 1. By the word Bishop 2. By a Church 3. By a particular Church 4. By a Diocess and Diocesan Church 5. By a National Church 6. By the Vniversal Church 7. By Church Government and Iurisdiction 8. By Schism I shall dispute no terms unexplained lest one take them in one sense and the other in another and so we dispute but about a sound of words II. I desire that the denied Subject of the Question may not be taken for granted instead of being proved On these terms supposing the common Laws of Disputation especially avoiding words that have no determinate sense I shall not refuse whenever you invite me and I am able to debate with you any of these points that I am concerned in especially whether my Preaching Christs Gospel as I do be my sin or my duty And if our great distance in Principles put either of us upon r●●sons that seem dishonouring to the person opposed we shall I hope 〈…〉 that it is the opinion only that is directly intended But 〈…〉 opinion is the persons opinion if it be bad is a dish●n●●r whi●● the owner only is guilty of and the opponent ca●not 〈…〉 must not forbear to open the evil of the cause for avoiding the dishonour of the owner but must the rather open it in hope that the owner will disown it when he understandeth truly what it is For I suppose it is evidence of Truth that we desire In Conclusion remember I pray you 1. That it is not the ancient Episcopacy which was in Cyprians days yea which agreeth with Epiphanius's Intimations and Petavius excellent Notes thereon in Haeres 69. which I deny And I conjecture that at this day in England there are more Episcopal than Presbyterian silenced Non-conformists 2. That what sort of Prelacy or higher Rulers I dare not subscribe to yet I can live quietly and submissively under though not obey them by sinning against God or breaking my Vows of Baptism or Ordination and perfidiously leaving souls to Satan Nothing more threateneth the subversion of the Church-Government than swearing men to approve of all th●t's in it Many can submit and live in peace that dare not subscribe or swear Approbation It was the caet●ra Oath 1640 that constrained me to th●se searches which 〈◊〉 me a Nonconformist It is an easie ma●●er for Overdoers to add but a cla●se or two more to their Oaths and Subscriptions which shall ma●e almost all the conscionable Ministers of the Kingdom Nonconformists 3. Whenever notorious necessity ceaseth by the sufficient number and q●ality of Conforming Preachers I will cease Preaching in England But death is liker first to silence me Though I take my Conforming to be a Complex of heinous sins should I be guilty of it yet till I am called I perswade none to Nonformity for fear of casting them occasionally out of the Ministry preferring their work before the change of their judgment till such endeavours are clearly made by duty But all your endeavour as far as ever I perceived is not so much to draw us to Conformity as to persuade us to give over Preaching Christs Gospel so contrary are our designs 1 Thes· 2.15 16. Methinks is a fearful Text. And so are the words of the Liturgy before the Sacrament If any of you be a hinderer of Gods Word repent or take not this Sacrament lest Satan enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you c. FINIS This was written long ago The Earl of Orery ☜