Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	witness_v	world_n	write_v	16	3	4.8158	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36832	The conformity of the discipline and government of those who are commonly called independants to that of the ancient primitive Christians by Lewis Du Moulin.	Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680.	1680 (1680)	Wing D2533; ESTC R25012	54,163	74

that of Thuanus before his History and the Preface of Casaubon in his Edition of Polybius 'T WILL no doubt be expected that I should add the order which is observed and practised in the Independant Churches to their confession which ought to follow but as they profess a perfect harmony among themselves so likewise they do not believe this same absolute necessity as to that which concerns discipline for excepting some few Apostolical and perpetual Rules which admit no change according to times and places concerning the equality of Pastors that choice that every Church is to make of its Pastor in which Monsieur Mestrezat and Monsieur Claude make the true ordination to consist the solemn benediction of that Pastor by fasting and prayers and the refusal they make of their Ministries and of their Members which some call Excommunication and deposition excepting I say these acts their order is to do all things decently and in order in the Church as Saint Paul requires But they are governed as all other Societies and as they explain themselves in the first Chapter of their confession of faith Article VII in these words There are some circumstances in the Government of the Church and in divine Worship which are common with all the actions of men which are practised in all societies and which might ●o be regulated by natural light and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the word of God which are always to be observed THIS is all the discipline which the Independ●nts practise then Government is that of well order d R●publicks that cannot possibly be too exact for the regulating of manners but which have but very few Lawes for that of Polity they are far from that Maxim in p●ssima republicà pluri ne leges BUT how ●ise soever their carriage and government be how sound and Orthodox their Doctrine and how exact and scrupulous their ●ives yet they cannot escape the tyr●●ny of those little sincere judgements which the most learned and grave persons have made of them so that it need be no surprize at all if the Doctors of Rome how illuminated soever and sincere they have seem'd to be have had for so many Ages and have still to this day so great an Aversion for our Religion how holy soever it is and have passed judgments so little favourable of it as to draw from our Morals consequences that are as far from purity and truth as they are from our intention This I say need be no surprize at all to us since that Amyrauld Daillé and so many others of their gown have not passed any less sinister judgment of a generation of men as holy as any in the World I mean of the Independants no more than of their carriage government and Doctrine AS to their carriage and Government whether in private or in the Church I do not believe there are any better regulated more Wise more Prudent more Illuminated nor more Religious As to their Doctrine their Confession of Faith shall Witness what it is since that of all those that have appeared in the World of that Nature it is a peice the most Perfect Pure and Orthodox And in which it may well nigh be said the Christian Religion may be found compleat though there should onely be remaining that single piece in all the Booksellers Shops in the World CHAP. X. Of the Wise and Prudent carriage of the Independants and of their way to get further off the Church of Rome than any other and to condemn all the wayes of Reconciliation with it and the Churches that hold any Communion with Rome that the indeavour to come near it is damnable and pernicious as is sufficiently seen in the present posture of the affairs of England THOSE who shall approve of the wise conduct of the Congregational Churches in the composing of a Confession that hath so much conformity with the purest Churches of Jesus Christ will be easily perswaded that neither Wisdome nor Prudence have been wanting to them when with that conformity of Faith that there is between them and the Churches that are at greatest distance from Popery they have preserved to themselves their liberty as to matter of discipline to do their business a part independantly one on the other and on all other Authority beside that of Jesus Christ without making use of that way of Reconciliation which hath been practised in all Ages by the means of conferences and Synods which have rather sharp'ned and exasperated spirits and perpetuated quarrels than any ways appeased and hushed them and whereof all the advantage that can be hoped is at most to make such an accord as it may be dissembles or disguises or else suppresses the truth THIS is no more than what appeared in the Colloquy of Poissy where the greatest defenders of Transubstantiation and those who combated and opposed it as a vile Monster of Rome concurred together upon the Article of the real presence in the Eucharist And this is what appear'd also in the Overture of Reconciliation which was made in the year 1578. in the Synod of Saincte Foy with the Lutherans by the means of a formulary or president of such a profession of Faith as should be general and common with all Churches as they proposed to draw up but that Overture could only tend to a Reconciliation as difficult as that of finding a Medium between Transubstantiation and the Opinion of our Churches which is contrary to it Certainly our Churches were never able to draw back from the purity of our Doctrine nor from the sincerity with which they express it without being at the same time guilty of great prevarication And moreover the Lutherans would never have yielded to go off from their ingagement to Luther and his Consubstantiation If both had complied and met at half way it would have been a most wretched peace quae as Saint Austin speaks fit dispenaio veritatis THE present posture of the Affairs of England is a very clear and convincing proof that the Indeavour of those Reconcilers how good soever their designs were is ruinous both to Church and State There has been an attempt for above this last Age to get into a Neighbourhood and Vicinity with Rome thinking to sweeten the spirits and tempers of those of its communion to draw them over to ours or at at least to make but one Communion of two In the beginning of the Reformation there were several of the Ceremonies retained and fifty years afterwards others of them were introduced they have attempted to bring in Images and so to pass from thence to worshipping of them Every where the Altars are new set up on purpose no doubt to make there the Sacrifice of the Mass to Smoak which is apparent by the bowings and cringings to those Altars or at least to the places where they are set or as some will have it be to the East The Ordination of Romish Pastors is held for good and for that

commend what I do not approve in the bottome of my heart since I do not joyn my self to it They will say likewise that I have had no other design than to gain my own Sentiments credit with which they say I am most fondly in Love in adjusting them to those of the Independants and because I condemn Ecclesiastical power and Excommunication which I have undertook to possess the World with the belief of that so they should banish the use of it To which I answer that though I should joyn my self to their Assemblies it would be no argument that I should approve of all the things they did and all they believed as they cannot conclude by my not joyning to their Congregations that I have not the Congregational way in greater and higher esteem than any other As I am a Frenchman and by the grace of God of the reformed Church I joyn to the Church of my own Nation to which I am so much the more strongly invited by the holiness of the Doctrines and lives of our excellent Pastors Monsieur Mussard and Monsieur Primerose and because they administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the same manner as Jesus Christ did it with his Disciples not having any thing to give me offence in their conduct unless that they are not absolutely undeceived of the practise of our Pastors in France of excommunicating in the Name and Authority of Jesus Christ and of interposing the same sacred Name and the same sacred Authority to excommunicate as St. Paul made use of to deliver the Incestuous person over to Satan though they cannot find this Authority of excommunicating in all the Bible nor justifie it unless they elude that harshness of expression by this way of sweetning that their only intention is to declare that those sinners of whom they make the number take the Lord's Supper to their Condemnation if they do not repent before-hand AS for other accusations although I believe that of all Establishments of Religion that of the Independant Churches is the most Apostolical yet I do not believe it is infallible and I cannot approve of all they say nor all they practise concerning discipline nor concerning the use of the Ecclesiastical power and excommunication though this usage be not in all the same nor in all the Churches because some among them do retain it jure societatis vi virtute paoti federis eniti However it is both of them make use of Ecclesiastical power and excommunication very innocently for they do not set up a National Tribunal Independant on the Magistrate and they Attribute to their Synods no other Authority than that of perswasion both from wise and experienced persons Moreover from the manner that they express themselves in the VII Article of the first Chapter of their Confession of Faith one may conclude that beside the Jurisdiction which works upon hearts by the word they acknowledge no other than that which is taken by a natural right and that wisdom and prudence has not been wanting to them by their having in a joynt consent agreed in one and the same Doctrine because it is of divine and perpetual right but in not having established any thing determinatively to be a perpetual rule upon an Arbitrary and changeable matter and of humane right as is the discipline of the Churches and the Authority of the Pastors in their conduct and government BUT although they should have retained some usage of the Ecclesiastical power and excommunication which are so many Reliques of Rome that have accomplished the Mystery of iniquity and brought the Pope into the world they would be no less priviledged than St. Paul and the other Apostles who after they had received the holy Ghost in greater measure than all the holy men that had been before them yet they alwayes retained some leven of affection to the Mosaical Ceremonies If the Christians that came from Paganisme have alwayes kept some pollution of it it ought not to be any great surprise to see the purest Churches in the World yet not throughly cleansed from all the Impurities of Rome FOR these considerations I feed my self with the hopes that the Ministers of the Independant Churches who are too much illuminated long to remain in the belief and use of this illusion of Ecclesiastical power which hath brought Episcopacy that is the first step of Ascention to the papacy and after that Excommunication and Infallibility and that they would put in practise instead of excommunication that denuntiation which S. Paul recommended to his Disciple and son Timothy it is that in case any disorderly or wicked person of the Congregation cannot be perswaded to change his opinion and life and voluntarily to leave the Communion of the Church it should be published aloud in the face of the Church and the faithful should be exhorted to shun his company and in case that he persevere in such refractoriness he ought to be expelled by force as well from the Table of the Lord as from the Church And this is what may be practised by a natural right de jure societatis without any need of making such expulsion of credit by the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven and by the power of binding and loosing In short I hope they will be perswaded by this consideration that the benefit which comes by the Ecclesiastical power and Excommunication will never recompence the pernitious effects that they have produced NOW I believe that these three considerations that I am a Physician that I am a Frenchman and that I do not joyn to any one certain Congregational Assembly as a Member of it will give more Authority and credit to the relation I have made of their government and conduct and make it less the suspected than if I were of their Number of their Nation and a Divine by Profession For if I were qualified in three wayes I could not speak as a person disinteressed but as having a personal inclination to the way I should have espoused And that is the weakness of all those who plead for their own cause as we learn from S. Austin and Optatus Milevitanus who were of this opinion that a sincere Pagan or Heathen whether a Physitian a Sophister a Philosopher or belonging to the Magistracy were more competent Judges in matters of Divinity and differences among Christians than persons of the Priesthood and Sacerdotal function AS S. Paul could not elect a more disinteressed person to gain the Christian Religion credit in the minds of men and to write his Gospel as he calls it and the Acts of the Apostles than S. Luke the Physitian to whom the world is more obliged than to a thousand S. Chrysostomes and S. Austins and to all the persons of the Sacred Order without so much as excepting the very Apostles themselves I believe that the same Judgment ought to be made of me and that my quality of a Physitian ought to give stronger