Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A49109
|
The case of persecution, charg'd on the Church of England, consider'd and discharg'd, in order to her justification, and a desired union of Protestant dissenters
|
Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.
|
1689
(1689)
|
Wing L2961; ESTC R6944
|
61,317
|
83
|
down Fire and Brimstone on them before night Object These are terrible Judgments but where are those false Prophets to whom they belong Answ I know not any party though there be very many among us whose Leaders do not accuse the Guides of the other Parties as false Prophets as either not having a lawful Ordination but run before they are sent or being lawfully Ordained do preach such Doctrines as are not agreeable to the written word which is the only Canon or Rule of Faith and Manners As to the first viz. The lawfulness of Ordination it hath been sufficiently evidenced against the Papists that the Ministers of the Established Church of England are lawfully Ordained and by the Concessions of the most sober Diffenters it is granted who never required any other Ordination of such as went over to the opposite Parties nor doth the Church of England deny the validity of Ordinations in the Church of Rome though it doth deny the same to those separate Factions which heap up Teachers to themselves having itching Ears for the Primitive Church hath never approved of such Ordinations wherein a Bishop did not preside and joyn with his Presbyters But supposing the Ordination to be valid we are to consider the truth of those Doctrines by the correspondency they bare to the Canon of the Holy Scriptures for whoever shall preach any other Doctrine as an Article of Faith necessarily to be received and believed in order to Salvation though it be an Angel from Heaven 't is the Apostles Sentence that he be accursed Gal. 2.8 i. e. we may have no Communion with him by this rule therefore we are to try the Doctrines and Spirits of those false Prophets which are abroad in the World and by these Characters we may discern them if there be any that do deny that Jesus Christ is come into the World or that he is indeed the Son of God of one and the same substance with the Father if any reject the Doctrines taught by him and his Apostles resisting the Truth and Faith once deliver'd to the Saints being ashamed of Christ and his Words if any reject the Institutions of Christ's Ministers and Sacraments or add new Precepts and Commandments requiring the like observance of them as of his Word and Ordinance if any shall publickly preach such Opinions and Practises as are not according to Godliness but tend directly to Profaneness Uncleanness Disorder and Division if any forbid what God Commands or command what God forbids teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of Men such men will be found false Prophets and whether the Socinians that deny the equality of the Son of God with the Father in one Substance whether they that set up other Mediators between God and Man or command Divine Worship to be given to the Creatures and the work of Mens hands or that to colour this Impiety expunge the second Commandment that add to the number of Sacraments more than Christ Ordained and take from those which he instituted an Essential part such as the Cup in the Lord's Supper with a Non-obstante to Christ's Institution or such as wholly deny the use and efficacy of Baptism that prefer their own Prayers to that of our Saviour and their own Dreams and Delusions to the Revelation of Christ and his Apostles whether they that teach Disobedience to Magistrates and speaking evil of Dignities and stir up Seditions and Divisions from whence come Wars and Confusions and every evil thing whether these have not the Characters of false Prophets the Scriptures and Primitive Councils have determined And if the Established Church teach no other Doctrine than what is consonant to the Holy Scriptures and approved as well by Papists as by Presbyterians and Independents for as for the other Sectaries Anabaptists Quakers c. who reject the Authority of Scriptures we are not much concerned for their Objections if we worship the only true God and own Christ Jesus God and Man to be the only Mediator between God and Man observing all and only the Doctrines of Christ for rendring unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods The Character of a false Prophet cannot justly be imputed to any of her Ministers the great Crime objected to the Church by the Romanists is our separation from their Communion to which it is Answered That we have no otherwise left them than they have deserted the Doctrines and Communion of the Scriptures and the Primitive Church for the first four hundred Years to which if they shall return we are ready to give them the right hand of Fellowship But then it will be objected by some modern Dissenters in the words of Optatus Paces credemus uno sigillo sigillati sumus nec aliter baptizati nec aliter ordinati quam vos testamentum Divinum legimus pariter c. We believe in the same God and Saviour we are Baptized and Ordained as you and read the same Divine Testament but they are answered in the words of the same Father Hoc solo nomine quod a Christi Ecclesia separati estis vitam non habelitis for this only Crime of forsaking the Communion of Christ's Church you may come short of Eternal Life To which agreeth that of St. Augustin Extra Ecclaesiam Omnia possint habere praeter salutem possunt habere honorem possint habere sacramentum possunt cantare Hallelujah possunt respondere Amen possunt Evangelium tenere predicare possunt in nomine patris filii spiritus sancti fidem habere predicare sed nusquam nisi in Ecclesiâ Catholica possunt salutem invenire And therefore we are told That Schism is as studiously to be avoided as Idolatry Non minor est gloria Martyrium sustinere ne seinditur Ecclesia quare ne Idolis sacrificetur By denying the one we consult for our private Salvation by the other for the publick safety of the Church And if indeed we are agreed in the Essentials of Religion what cause can be given why by our Dissention in some Circumstances we should expose our selves and the People to all those Mischiefs which will inevitably follow on our Divisions For on the same grounds that they who agree with us in Doctrinals do deny to hold Communion with us in Worship others that have not so great an agreement with them may forsake their Communion and so our Divisions may be perpetuated and multiplied Inter licet nostrum non licet vestrum nutant animae Christianorum nemo vobis credit nemo nobis omnes contentiosi homines sumus saith Optatus p. 84. The People will not believe we have the same Faith when they see we agree not in the same Worship But if we have indeed the same Faith why do we separate It is doubtless a Sin to separate from that Church in whose Communion we may remain without Sin and it is a real Imputation of somewhat that is sinful in our Communion when we separate
no means be drawn to give their consent the King was prevailed with to own a Suppositious Child as Heir to his Dominions that he might give a new life to the Popish and Fanatick Interests But this and his sense of the Protestant Cause which was then in a decaying condition stirred up the Spirit of our present King to vindicate the Cause of the English Church and his own and his Consort 's Title to the Crown and the Severity used to the Bishops and the Universities and the Affront done to the English Souldiers by bringing some thousands of Irish Cut-Throats and preferring them above the English did stem the Tide and immediately upon the Arrival of the Prince's Army there followed a great Revolt of the Nobility Souldiery and Gentry of the Land who marching towards London became formidable to the King who coming as far as Salisbury intending to fight the Prince found himself so deserted that he returned in great haste to London and considering into what streights his precipitant Counsels had brought him he sends for such Bishops as were in or near London to have their Advice in that critical Juncture which with all possible humility and integrity they did to this effect 1. That it was necessary for him to restore all things to the state wherein he found them when he came to the Crown by committing all Offices and Places of Government to such of the Nobility and Gentry as were qualified for them according to the Laws and by redressing and removing such Grievances as were generally complained of particularly that his Majesty would dissolve the Ecclesiastical Commission and promise to his People never to Erect any such Court for the future 2. That he would not only put an effectual stop to the issuing forth of any Dispensations but would call in and cancel all those which since his coming to the Crown had been obtained from him 3. That he would restore the Universities to their Legal State Statutes and Customs and particularly restore the Master of Magdalen Colledge in Cambridge and the ejected President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford to their Properties 4. And that he would not permit any Persons to enjoy any Preferments in either University but such as were qualified by the Statutes and Laws of the Land. 5. That he would suppress the Jesuits Schools opened in London or else-where and grant no more Licenses for such Schools as were against the Laws of the Land and his Majesties true interest 6. That he would send Inhibitions after the Four Romish Bishops who under the Title of Apostolick Vicars did presume to exercise within this Kingdom such Jurisdictions as are by the Laws of the Land invested in the Bishops of the Church of England 7. That he would not suffer any more Quo Warranto's to be sued out against any Corporations but restore to such as had been disturbed their ancient Charters Priviledges and Immunities and condemn all those illegal Regulations that had been made 8. That he would fill up all the vacant Bishopricks in England and Ireland with Persons duly qualified and especially consider the See of York whose want of an Archbishop is very prejudicial to the whole Province 9. That he would act no more nor insist on the Dispensing Power but leave it to be debated and setled by Act of Parliament 10. That on the Restoration of Corporations he would issue Writs for a Free Parliament for redressing of Grievances in Church and State upon just and solid Foundations and to establish due Liberty of Conscience Lastly and above all That his Majesty would permit some of his Bishops to lay such Motives and Arguments before him as might by the Blessing of God bring back his Majesty to the Communion of the Church of England into whose Catholick Faith he had been Baptized in which he had been Educated and to which it was their earnest Prayer to Almighty God that his Majesty might be re-united Had these sober and pious Counsels been accepted then when the Bishop's Petition was rejected as a false malitious and seditious Libel the King might have been still setled on the Throne but he had past the Rubicon and was resolved to fight out his way for the establishing the Popish Religion against all opposition and being deserted by his English Forces hath resolutely cast himself on the French and Irish and what hath been done against the established Church there cannot amount to less than a Persecution And such a one must we have expected had not God's Almighty Arm bafled their Antichristian Designs Now if the Popish Party have been so hasty and violent in persecuting the Church as soon as they got Power into their hands notwithstanding all that kindness and moderation manifested to them to the great regret of the other Dissenters who thought themselves less gently dealt with I know not what more gentle usage the Church could expect from them who have so long and loudly cried out of Persecution and for Forty or Fifty Years together covenanted to root out Episcopacy and Liturgy and perpetuated that Obligation to the present Generation so that the bitter Spirit of the Smectymneunans seem to survive still in the present Dissenters who still maintain the Old Cause and if ever the Power should return to their hands as in the time of the Long Parliament would fly as high and fall on the same Game for a Lyon is no less a Lyon while he is restrained within a Den and loaden with Chains but grows usually more raging when let loose and Maledicus à malefico non distat nisi occasione Those ravenons Beasts that do rent a Man in Effigie do manifest what they would do in Corpore as the Donatists who first slew the Orthodox Gladio Oris did as they had opportunity destroy them Ore Gladii I think it will be a difficult Province for a very good Orator to perswade the Church of England that such Dissenters as have all along struck at the Root will be contented if a few Branches were cut off When the Winds and Storms rage the Husband-men will part with the Branches to preserve the Root I may part with a Coat or a Cloak to an importunate Brother but if he to enrich himself by making me poor continues craving till he strips me to the skin and leaves me naked I am not so much charitable to him as cruel to myself Had the Dissenters in 62 asked less they might have had more granted but when they crave all they deserve nothing if the same Leaven do begin to swell and ferment the Spirits of Men now as then we are commanded to be aware of them We had no sooner past a Fiery Tryal in the Twenty Years Persecution by the Dissenters but were under another Twenty Years Tryal under the Papists though it did not appear so visible and successful till of late And if the Papists should be asked who were the Persecutors in the first Twenty Years they must answer the Dissenters if we should ask the Dissenters whether the Papists or the Church of England were the persecuted Party in the last Twenty Years it must be answered the Papists were for though their frequent Attempts to destroy the Church proved abortive as there may be many traiterous Conspiracies against the Life of a Prince though he survive them all and bring the Conspirators to condign punishment as in the Powder-Plot Cain might have been called a Persecutor of Abel though he had not slain him and Ishmael's cruel mocking of his Brother is called a persecuting of him And if the same bitterness of Spirit do reign in the English as hath shewn itself in the Scottish Presbytery the Episcopal Party may well be jealous of them and few I suppose will be of the Opinion of W. J. That the Removal of our Ceremonies will be an equivalent compensation for the shedding of as much Blood and exhausting as much Treasure as was shed and exhausted in the late inhumane Civil War Where the Royal Martyr the Archbishop many Nobles innumerable Gentry and Commons were sacrificed for a Reformation of Ceremonies but I hope such fury will not possess the hearts of any Dissenters in this Age. To Conclude The Church is still through the wonderful Providence of God in the legal possession of her Rights she is neither Popishly affected nor of a persecuting Spirit or Power she hath learnt by her own Suffering for Conscience-sake how to pity such as are truly conscientious but if any man be contentious and will deny her that liberty which they challenge to themselves I shall only say with the Apostle 〈◊〉 hath been to those French Protestants 〈◊〉 have found 〈◊〉 a Sanctuary and do readily joyn in her Worship and Service and I suppose their Judgments are as solid and their 〈◊〉 as tender as any of our Dissenters who yet look on our Church as a â—eth-haven and a House of Bondage FINIS ADVERTISEMENTS 1. A Resolution of Certain Queries concerning Submission to the Present Government The Queries 1. Concerning the Orginal of Government 2. What is the Constitution of the Government of England 3. What Obligation lies on the King by the Coronation-Oath 4. What Obligation lies on the Subject by the Oaths of Supremacy c. 5. Whether if the King Violate his Oath and actually Destroys the Ends of it the Subjects are freed from their Obligation to him 6. Whether the King hath Renounced or Deserted the Government 7. Whether on such Desertion the People to preserve themselves from Confusion may admit another what Method is to be used in such Admission 8. Whether the Settlement now made is a Lawful Establishment and such as with a good Conscience may be Submitted to 2. A full Answer to all the Popular Objections that have yet appear'd for not taking the Oath of Allegiance to their present Majesties particularly offered to the Consideration of all such of the Divines of the Church of England and others as are yet unsatisfied Shewing both from Scripture and the Laws of the Land the Reasonableness thereof and the Ruining Consequences both to the Nation and Themselves if not complied with 3. The Historian Unmask'd Or Some Reflections on the late History of Passive Obedience Wherein the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance is truly Stated and Asserted By a Divine of the Church of England All Three Printed by Freeman Collins and are to be Sold by Richard Baldwin in the Old-Bailey 1689.