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A41563 Spiritual order and Christian liberty proved to be consistent in the Churches of Christ and impositions upon the consciences of believers in religious practices found to be antichristian and destructive to both / by R.G. a protestant. Gordon, Robert, fl. 1669-1675. 1675 (1675) Wing G1291; ESTC R29926 14,410 15

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SPIRITUAL ORDER AND Christian Liberty PROVED To be Consistent in the Churches of Christ AND Impositions upon the Consciences of Believers in Religious Practices FOUND To be Antichristian and Destructive to both By R.G. A Protestant Acts 2.42 And they continued in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship Yet Rom. 14.5.23 Let every man be fully perswaded in his own Mind for what is not of Faith is Sin But 1 Cor. 14.10 Let all things be done decently and in Order Yet 2 Cor. 1.24 Not that we have Dominion over your Faith For 2 Cor. 13.10 The Power given of the Lord to us was not to Destruction but to Edification Therefore Gal. 5.1 Stand fast in the Liberty wherein Christ hath made you free and be not again intangled with Yoaks of Bondage Yet Gal. 5.13 Vse not this Liberty for an occasion to the Flesh but in Love serve one another To the Christian Reader whether Bound or Free COuld I have satisfied my self in smothering this Discourse it had not appeared in publick from me now in this my retiredness from the noise of the many Debates about Rites and Ceremonies in Religion which have so miserably rent and divided Protestants-Societies in separate Communions judging and condemning one another because of different outward Practices and various apprehensions in debatable Questions wherein though they differ each abounding in his own sense yet they ought to continue as One in the Lord though in several distinct Fellowships and differing in Outward Practices But being alaramed with the loud clamour on the one hand of Church Government Laws and Orders of general and particular Meetings of the Friends of the Ministry and others the necessity of one or more in the Church having power infallibly to determine all Matters controverted therein to whom all must submit though unconvinced or unclear in themselves or else be branded with the odious Names of Schismatick Stragler Breaker of the Vnity of the Body and many worse appellations not worth the repeating And on the other hand with the Groans and Struglings of a few who have not defiled their Garments but are wrestling for their Christian Liberty under different outward Practices against Impositions and introduced Innovations contrary to that great Principle of Conviction and Choice upon which all Christians were at first united in distinct Societies And that from among a People separating themselves from ●he Communion of all other Christians of what Denomination soeve● upon the Principle of Immediate Inward Revelation of Light and Spirit communicated to every man as he cometh into the World for his convincement and conduct in all things he is to believe and practice in Religion and condemning in others an Imposing Ecclesiastical Power as tyrannous and contrary to that Inward Revelation they have so often asserted to be in every man to lead him into all Truth I am constrained in my mind thus to appear in publick testifying to that Spiritual Order and Christian Liberty established by the Apostles in the first Churches and recorded in the New-Testament as the only proper means for preserving any Christian Society from a confused disorderly Licentiousness and Tyrannous usurped Imposings I intend not by publishing this Discourse to enter into a debate with any Person being resolved what ever entertainment it may meet with to possess my Soul in Patience committing the Issue to the Lord. Neither would I be understood to be so ingaged in any particular Company of Protestants so as to plead for the one against the other It is the first great Foundation Principle upon which the Protestants separated from those of the Roman Communion that is here pleaded for to wit That the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures without us and the Illumination of the Holy Spirit within us gives final determination in Matters of Religion Whereby every Christian for himself is restored to his Liberty of Inquiry Choice so freed from the Imposition of unscriptural Traditions by Popes General Councils Therefore what I am matters not to this Discourse and what others may judge me to be because of it doth but little concern me every man is to give an account of himself to God and not he that commends himself or is highly accounted of by others but he whom the Lord commends is approved FAREWEL Spiritual Order and Christian Liberty c. THE Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ having received the Promise of the Father and fitted with Power from on high went forth Preaching the Gospel with great Power giving Witness to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus and Multitudes believed and great Grace fell upon them all They came not with outward Force upon the unbelieving World neither did they magisterially as by an unaccountable authority impose upon Believers Doctrines and Practises to be received by them without inward convincement Nay nay God who commanded Light to shine out of Darkness shined in their Hearts therefore they knowing the terrours of the Lord perswaded men they beseeched prayed men to be reconciled to God commending themselves in the sight of God to every mans Conscience by requiring every one in the Church to be fully perswaded in himself Whereby they became manifest both to God and in the Consciences of those that believed Whereupon the Disciples multiplying first at Jerusalem and afterwards in other Places they were gathered into several distinct Congregations or Churches each distinct Congregation continuing together with one accord abode stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship the care of whom was upon them by whose Ministry they were first gathered for their Establishment in their most Holy Faith who therefore delivered to them when present among them and in Letters when absent from them such Instructions as being observed might preserve them though in distinct Fellowships as the Houshould of God built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the Chief Corner Stone in the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Hence we read in their Epistles these and such like Precepts I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which you have learned and avoid them Be perfectly in the same Mind and in the same Judgment I beseech you Brethren be Followers of me for this Cause have I sent Timotheus who is faithful in the Lord who will bring you in remembrance of my ways as I teach every where in every Church Now I pray you Brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the Ordinances as I delivered them to you Know them that labour among you and are over you in the Lord esteem them highly for their Works sake exhort rebuke with all authority let no man dispise thee let all things be done decently and in Order Thus also the Apostles being guided by the unerring conduct of the Spirit of God in discarge of the Ministry committed to them whereof they gave sufficient Evidence to the stopping the Mouthes of
further this Spiritual Government and Christian Liberty are not only consistent and was accordingly practised in the first Churches but i● was also necessary that it should be so because thereby the Spiritual Vnity and Peace of the Churches is preserv'd on the one hand from Confusion on the other hand from Tyranny all things being done decently and in order and yet in Charity and to Edification therefore the Apostle Paul finding Divisions to be entered into the Church at Corinth and to prevent the like at the Church at Rome in his Epistles to those Churches he leads them to the practice of this Spiritual Government and Christian Liberty as the most proper remedy to recover and preserve them in the Peace and Vnity of the Gospel which he that will be at the pains to read may perceive Indeed under the Old Covenant the Service thereof stood in Meats and Drinks and divers Washings observing Times and Days and carnal Ordinances until the time of the Reformation but now that time being come under the New-Covenant wherein the Lord saith I will write my Laws in their Hearts in the Exercise of Church-Government among a People under that Dispensation Christian Liberty is of absolute Necessity the Law requiring Obedience being not in Tables of Stone but in their Hearts they were to walk in the Order of the Gospel through the Convincement of that Law in their Hearts they were under And the necessity of the continuation of both these conjoyned together is also manifest by the sad Consequences which have followed there where Church Government hath been exalted on the Ruines of Christian Liberty at this Door this dark night af Apostacy entred into the Church at the first a Mystery of Iniquity that begun to work in the days of the Apostles not by a Demas that forsook them but by a Deotrephes that sought Preheminence among them for in the exercise of Church-Government in Christian Societies had the Apostles Rules of Expediency Edification Peace and Charity the best and only Preservatives of Gospel Order and Vnity been observed in all Ages by Church Rulers the many Schismes that have rent and divided the Churchos of Christ had not entred and when contrary to Christian Liberty Innovations are imposed by Church-Authority the Dissenters cannot in truth be reputed the Breakers of the Churches Vnity though accounted such by the Imposers But the many Schismes and the sad Consequences of them in any Christian Society is then most justly laid to their charge who being Church Governours under the name of Comely Orders impose Vnscriptural Traditions of the Elders as necessary Conditions of Church-Communion upon the Consciences of the Disciples unto which they are required to submit though unclear or unconvinced as they would not be accounted Breakers of the Vnity of the Body and as such be refused the Spiritual Fellowshig of the Church Which kind of Imposition as it is manifest by what is said already to be contrary to the Doctrine of the New-Testament and tenour of the New-Covenant so it makes void the Foundation Principle of Protestancy is contrary to Right Reason really destructive both to the Spiritual Order and Christian Liberty of the Gospel and last of all is a direct contradiction to an immediate inward Revelation of the Spirit as being a Rule to every particular Christian for his Conduct in all Religious Practices and to that end implanted in every man as he comes into the World First let the serious Protestants examine the first and great Foundation Principle on which they founded their Separation from those of Rome and they will find that to assert the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures without us and of the Illumination of the Holy Spirit within us they protested that neither Traditions Councils Popes nor Cannons of any visible Church but the Scripture only interpreted by the Holy Spirit gives final Determination in Matters of Religion Which is so wholly at once made void by this kind of Church-Imposition if allowed that their Protestation becomes quite insignificant thereby Secondly it is contrary to Right Reason to allow of such an Imposition in a Christian Society because all in such a Society are of one joynt voluntary Communion it is therefore most unreasonable for one or more of that Society to impose their final determinations in matters controverted on their Brethren unconvinced and not referred to them in respect such Societies are to be governed according to their first Principle of Union which is Inward Perswasion and therefore is to be upheld by that same Principle least it degenerate into Tyranny Uniform Outward Practices they may be driven into but they cannot be the Bond of their Spiritual Union that being ever one and the same whil'st outward Practices are alterable so never to be imposed as necessary but to be perswaded into as they are found agreeable to the Rules of Conveniency Edification Peace and Charity It is Man's Glory that he is not Religious by any kind of outward force but that in his worshiping God he offers up to him a free and reasonable Sacrifice whereas this kind of Church Power once admitted deprives Persons of the use of their Reason who by submitting unconvinced do give the Lye to their Understandings in a word it leaveth a man neither the use of his Reason as a Man nor of his Spiritual Understanding as a Christian and therefore cannot be of the God of Truth that hath indued every man with a reasonable Soul and every Christian with a Spiritual Understanding Thirdly It is also destructive both to the Spiritual Order and Christian Liberty of the Gospel this is sufficiently proved in the sad Example of those of Rome where the many unnecessary and unscriptural Traditions Rites and Ceremonies imposed have wholly extinguished the Spiritual Order of the Gospel mentioned in the New Testament and where the Bloody Inquisition hath buried Christian Liberty and will infallibly produce the same event where it is received Lastly The Contradiction betwixt this kind of Imposition and an Immediate Revelation of the Light and Spirit of God in every individual as his unerring Rule and Conduct in every thing of Religion is manifest in this that this Inward Revelation is asserted to be therefore given to every man as he cometh into the World as being of it self sufficient if obeyed to lead him into all Truth without any necessity of hearkning unto any outward Writings or Instructions whatsoever but as this Light leads thereunto which if it be so and that a Society be united upon that Principle in one joynt Communion the uselessness of one or more in the Church having such a Power or of general or particular outward Laws and Instructions to order Matters in that Society requiring Obedience thereunto And of the fore appointed Standing Meetings Weekly Monthly and Quarterly and the frequenting the Set Times and Places of those Meetings further than it becomes necessary to every individual Person of the Society through the Inward