A41330:370
The questions between the conformist and nonconformist, truly stated, and briefly discussed Dr. Falkner,…
The questions between the conformist and nonconformist, truly stated, and briefly discussed Dr. Falkner, The friendly debate &c., examined and answered : together with a discourse about separation, and some animadversions upon Dr. Stillingfleet's book entitled, The unreasonableness of separation : observations upon Dr. Templars sermon preached at a visitation in Cambridge : a brief vindication of Mr. Stephen Marshal.The questions between the conformist and nonconformist, truly stated, and briefly discussed Dr. Falkner, The friendly debate &c., examined and answered : together with a discourse about separation, and some animadversions upon Dr. Stillingfleet's book entituled, The unreasonableness of separation : observations upon Dr. Templers sermon preached at a visitation in Cambridge : a brief vindication of Mr. Stephen Marshal.
London: printed for Tho. Cockerill, 1681
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
4ly. Reverence in Gods worship we do commend as much as any. I wish sometimes that which men call Reverence be not Idolatry. But was David such an irreverent person, when he sate before the Lord in Prayer, 2 Sam. 7.18, 27. all the Versions hold to the word sate, and that at this time when his heart was enlarged from the sense of Gods ⟨p. 38⟩love. Cannot I pray reverently, when I lye upon my bed? and may we not as reverently receive the signs of the Lords body and blood, while we sit at his Supper? Cannot we know our own hearts? Who more profane in their conversation, and despisers of the commands of Christ, than most of these, who can kneel at Sacraments? Upon the same ground, i.e. Reverence, the Church of Rome will not put the Bread in the Sacrament into the peoples hands (though Maldonate grants for a long time the Church did so) but into their mouths forsooth, Multo plus habet reverentiae, Mat. 26.26.
But it is far from my intention to produce any new arguments against these Ceremonies, when there are so many produced by Dr. Ames Didochevius, and divers others. It is very observable what Mr. 1Jeans an acute Schoolman and Conformist in former times, who censured the Nonconformists as sharply as any, and wrote against them, while he had read but one side, as he saith, and was a stranger to what the Nonconformists could say for themselves, their adversaries representing their objections and answers so weak, and ridiculous) hath left upon record. When the Parliament began, he intended to write a full vindication of the Discipline and Ceremonies of the then Church of England, to which end he read all such Books of the Nonconformists as he could procure: Upon the perusal of them, saith he, I soon found that their adversaries most disingenuously misrepresented all that they said; that they refused to join issue with them in the state of the question; that they came not up to an ordinary grapple with them with their Arguments; and that they seldom regularly replied unto the solutions which were given to their objections; and this (saith he) quickly produced an alteration in my judgment, and I believe it will do so too in all that will make such an impartial search into the matter as I have done.