Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A44665
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An ansvver to Dr. Stillingfleet's Mischief of separation being a letter written out of the countrey to a person of quality in the city. Who took offence at the late sermon of Dr. Stillingfleet, Dean of S. Pauls; before the lord mayor.
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing H3014A; ESTC R215389
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34,952
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57
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Christian World viz. the adding other conditions of Church-communion than Christ hath done And though he hath lately told the World there are some passages in that book that shew only the inconsiderateness of Youth and that he seems to wish unsaid yet he hath not that we know declared that these are some of them However since this present determination and judgement of his against us is so peremptory and positive as well as severe let us in the next place 2. Consider and carefully examine as we are concerned what he hath performed in defence of it and it is to be hoped the inefficacy and weakness of his attempt therein will sufficiently appear What I can find in his Sermon hath any aspect or design that way is either ad rem or ad hominem And to my apprehension his reasonings of the one kind or the other are altogether unconcluding 1. As to what may be supposed to be ad rem if you look narrowly you will find that the principal things alledged by him that can under that notion give support to his Cause are only affirmed but not proved For instance p. 9. When he tells us that the Apostle supposed the necessity of one fixed and certain Rule c. This had been very material to his purpose if 1. He had told us and had proved the Apostle meant some Rule or other super-added to the Sacred Scriptures For then he might it is to be presumed as easily have let us know what that Rule was which most probably would have ended all our controversie it being little to be doubted we should all most readily have agreed to obey it Or 2ly If he had proved that because the Apostle had power to make such a Rule and oblige the Churches to observe it that therefore such Church-Guides as they whose cause the Doctor pleads have an equal power to make other Rules divers from his containing many new things which he never enjoyn'd and to enforce them upon the Church though manifestly tending to its destruction rather than edification But these things he doth but suppose himself without colour of proof Again for his Notion of Churches p. 16 17 18 19. examine as strictly as you will what he says about it And see whether it come to any thing more than only to represent a National Church a possible thing and whereto the name Church may without absurdity be given His own words seem to aim no higher Why may there not be one National Church from the consent in the same Articles of Religion and the same order of Worship pag. 18. The word was used in the first Ages of the Christian Church as it comprehended the Ecclesiastical Governours and the people of whole Cities And why many of these Cities being united together under one Civil Government and the same Rules of Religion should not be called one National Church I cannot understand p. 19. But can it now be infer'd thence that therefore God hath actually constituted every Christian Kingdom or Nation such a Church Can it further be infer'd that he hath invested the Guides of this Church not chosen by the people according Scripture and Primitive practice for some ages with a power to make Laws and Decrees prescribing not only things necessary for common order and decency but new federal Rites and teaching Signs and Symbols superadded to the whole Christian Institution with many more dubious and unnecessary things besides and to exclude sober and pious Christians from the Priviledges that are proper to the Christian Church as such meerly for that out of conscience towards God they dare not admit into their Worship those Additions to the Christian Religion To take order they shall have no Pastors no Sacraments no Assemblies for Worship and because they will not be so much more than Christians that they shall not be Christians at all He that would go about to make these Inferences meerly from the forementioned ground would gain to be laught at by all sober men instead of a conclusion whatsoever better success he should have who should undertake to prove the same things any other way This Reverend Author was so wise as not to attempt either of these But then in the mean time what doth the meer possible notion of such a Church advantage his Cause Because it is possible there might have been such a Macedonian or such a Lydian Church is such a one therefore necessary and any other Constitution of a Christian Church impossible or unlawful Or because the General meeting of the Magistrates of the whole City and People together in Pagan Athens was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore such must be the constitution of a Christian Church And therefore such a Church hath such powers from Christ as were above mentioned Here howsoever we make our stand and say that till the Doctor hath proved these two things 1. That such a Church as he hath given us the notion of as of a thing meerly possible is actually a Divine Institution And 2ly That God hath given to the Ecclesiastical Governours in it never chosen by the Christian Community or to any other Power to super-add Institutions of the nature above mentioned and to enforce them under the mentioned Penalties All his reasonings that pretend to be ad rem are to no purpose and do nothing at all advantage his Cause Yet there are some passages in this part of his Discourse that though they signifie nothing to his main purpose are yet very remarkable and which 't is fit we should take some notice of As when pag. 16. He tells us what he means by whole Churches viz. The Churches of such Nations which upon the decay of the Roman Empire resumed their just power of Government to themselves and upon their owning Christianity incorporated into one Christian Society under the same common tyes and rules of Order and Government As if there could be no whole Churches in the world that had not been of the Roman Empire Or as if those of the Roman Empire could not have been whole Churches without resumption of the Civil Government Or as we suppose he means as if which he intimates p. 19. we needed this so dearly espoused notion as a ground to acquit us from the imputation of Schism in our separating from the Church of Rome Which certainly it were not for the advantage of the Protestant Cause to admit For then all that remain within the Empire were bound to continue in the Communion of the Roman Church And in the other Kingdoms where Princes have not resumed their just right of reforming Errors in Doctrine and Corruptions in Worship all should be Schismaticks that should separate from the Church of Rome Again when p. 17. He would confute that great mistake the making the notion of a Church barely to relate to Acts of Worship A mistake whereof I never knew any man guilty He surely runs into as great an opposite mistake in making the notion of a Church
to be no more than of a society of men united together for their Order and Government according to the Rules of the Christian Religion Now Faith and Worship are quite excluded the notion of a Church And Order and Government and the Rules of the Christian Religion but as they refer to these only included Whence it will come to pass that we can have no notion of one Catholick Church from which yet he argues at the bottom of the same page Nor though I dislike the thing do I understand the strength of the Doctors Argument against making the notion of the Church barely to relate to Acts of Worship viz. That if this held true the Church must be dissolved as soon as the Congregation is broken up For will it not also follow as well that if the notion of a Church relate only to Order and Government every time any meeting for Affairs of Order and Government is broken up the Church is dissolved And that an Assembly of the States in any Kingdom or Nation cannot break up without a dissolution of the Government A Parliament at least not Adjourn or be Prorogued without being dissolved And whereas he adds But if they retain the nature of a Church when they do not meet together for worship then there is some other Bond that unites them and whatever that is it Constitutes the Church Is it not possible there may be such a Bond for Worship as well as for Government an Obligation to meet at stated times for that purpose when they are not met And then if this were all that were to be said to the contrary why might not that Bond as well serve to Constitute the Church But secondly For his reasonings ad hominem they need not detain us long he argues from the Judgment of the Assembly of Divines and others All which arguing must suppose if it concern us That we are bound to be of the same Judgment with the Ministers that are and have been so and so minded which I for my part understand not But I perceive here his intention is having endeavoured to draw us off from our Ministers now to move another Stone and try if he can draw them off from us For the Assembly I think it fit those that survive of them should be as much concluded by what they then determined as this reverend Author by the Irenicum But I know no reason that such as they never represented nor who ever pretended to be of their Party should be so concluded to the Worlds end Nor do understand why even the same Party may not be as well supposed in a possibility to vary from it self in fourty years as the same man from himself in less than twenty If they did incline to deal too hardly with their Brethren that will not justifie them who deal more hardly 'T is hoped such as have been so inclin'd have being smitten and suffered the rebukes of the Almighty repented it and are become wiser And when some think themselves grown wiser by prosperity others by adversity there is less reason to suspect the latter Yet also this reverend Author ought to have considered the great disparity of the Cases he would parallel For when one sort of men are considering of having only such a frame of things settled as are imposed by Christ himself whether they judge rightly or no that he hath imposed every part of that frame yet while they think and judge that he hath and consequently that nothing is to be abated of it 't were very unfitly argued that therefore another sort professing to impose many things never imposed by Christ should abate nothing of their unnecessary impositions For such as the Doctor quotes besides of the Non-conformists acknowledging the Parish Churches true Churches and the lawfulness of holding sometimes Communion with some of them It is not to be thought but among so many Parties as come all under one Common Notion of dissenters from the publick rule and whom that Rule did not find one but made them so in that Common Notion there must be great diversity of Opinions and proportionably differing practices in these matters I heartily prefer the most moderate as I believe you do But here this reverend Author takes occasion for so ignominious reflections upon our Preachers as insincere dishonest and unconscientious as I doubt not in one 20 Years more his ingenuity will oblige him to repent more heartily than ever it permitted him to do of his Irenicum Because he can alledge a very few persons that have spoken to this purpose therefore first it must be represented to the World as their common judgement next they are charged with concealing this judgment why is this kept up as such a mighty secret in the breasts of their Teachers p. 37. and then it is endeavoured to make men think they practice against their own judgments in preaching to seperate Congregations Surely you and I are concern'd as we have occasion to say what we truly can for the just vindication of our Ministers I doubt not but you believe and you have for some particular reason to be confident it is for our sakes they expose themselves to the displeasure of such men as D. St. I must for my part say 1. That I beleive it to be the judgement of very few that every Parish is as such a true Christian Church I am sorry I have such a ground to fear it of one kind viz. that some may not be so as not having among them any tolerable understanding of the most confessedly fundamental Principles of Christian Religion What say you to such where the Minister is grosly ignorant of the Principles of Religion or habitually vicious and of a prostigate life Do meer Orders make him a Minister who perhaps since he received them is become destitute of the most essential qualifications any more than the habit a Monk or a Beard a Philosopher Can a Mercury be made of every Log Not to insist that this reverend Author can scarce think they are from a ground of another kind because they assemble only for Worship and not for Government 2. And surely a Church may be unfit to be Communicated with although it be a true Church Those words of the reverend and worthy Dean of Canterbury carry their own light with them to this purpose As a man may be truly and really a man though he have the plague upon him and for that reason be fit to be avoided by all that wish well to themselves 'T is true there are vastly different degrees of that unfitness But I see not how they can apprehend there is the fitness which is simply necessary who judge there are conditions of Communion imposed that are sinful And I beleive this reverend Author will think it possible a true Church may impose some sinful conditions of her Communion in which case he hath determined a Non-communion with her necessary and unavoidable 3. For those that are