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A39326
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A vindication of the clergy from the contempt imposed upon them by the author of The grounds and occasions of the contempt of the clergy and religion with some short reflections on his further observations.
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Eachard, John, 1636?-1697.
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1672
(1672)
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Wing E65; ESTC R35669
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53,663
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152
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whole Party taking in all its sub-divisions despise and oppose our Reverend Clergy is for their constant and approved Loyalty to God and the King and sticking close to both in all Weathers it being their most sacred Principle Not to meddle with them that are given to Change How great a part of the Nation these three Squadrons of our Churches Enemies make is too sad a Theme for me to enlarge upon they have over-spread the Land like Locusts and 't would puzzle a very good Arithmetician to compute them it is sufficient for my present purpose that none of them dislike our Clergy either for their Ignorance or Poverty for the more Rich and Learned it is the worse they hate or envy it but upon vastly different Motives the first speak evil of them and all things sacred purely on the accompt of their own irreligion the second for their opposing the corrupted Doctrine and Discipline of Rome the third for their malignant Loyalty and resolv'd Obedience to God and his Church maugre all Scotish Covenants or Geneva Models The residue of the Nation we shall allow to be either in reality or pretence at least so far the Churches Friends as that they are not likely to be tempted in haste to throw off her Communion upon any score and yet I must freely grant that neither have many of them so just an esteem and value for the holy Function as they ought to have However if we find out a more probable and substantial Reason why they are also wanting in their due estimation of the Priesthood than either of those two our small Conjecturer hath hit upon his business I presume will be compleatly done he may e'en sit him down and guess again or rather take the Poets advice along with him for the future Sumite materiam vestris qui scribitis aequam Viribus and chuse some fitter subject for him and his idle Muses to play with next time and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not intrude into those things he understands not Now if we would speak out and answer plainly and truly how it comes to pass that so many of our pretended Friends give us not due respect and honour we must say it is because our Clergy are not publickly allowed the Authority due to their Function and necessary for executing the power of the Keys I mean the want of that godly Discipline of Confession and Penance in the Primitive Church which our Church of England hath long since wished for and Sir Edwyn Sandys saith might have been better restored in all the reformed Churches to its Primitive sincerity than utterly abolished and neglected as in most places it is for although we do justly charge the present Church of Rome for corrupting and degenerating from this ancient holy Discipline by their notorious abuses of it particularly by their laying the main stress and efficacy of it upon the definitive sentence of Absolution which according to the Trent Council is given before any fruits of Repentance are produced and requires no after penance but a few Ave Maries and Pater Nosters with some easie Alms to them that are able and a little fasting to such as are willing and sometimes for horrible Blasphemies and other lewdnesses imposeth only the bare saying of their Beads thrice over which they may dispatch too as they go in the streets their believing and teaching that by such like Penances the debt of temporal punishment is redeemed after the sin is pardoned the people all this while making accompt of Confession as professed Drunkards do of vomiting and the Priest using it as a Pick-lock to tyrannize over and torture Mens Consciences and make way for the dangerous delusions of Indulgences yet I say no Reformed Church can excuse it self which to avoid their extravagant abuses is faln into the other extream and lets the sober use of so excellent a piece of Discipline grow into utter desuetude and neglect for it must not it cannot be denied in the first place but that the power of the Keys to be executed not only in admitting Disciples to Church-membership by Baptism but also in rejecting Heretical Schismatical and immoral Professours and then absolving and re-admitting them into Communion upon their unfeigned submission and demonstrations of sincere Repentance is founded immediately upon our Lords own Institution and the Apostles and their Successours to the Worlds end derive their Authority from and act by the same Commission given them St. Matth. 18.18 Whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven or as it is explained and renewed St. Iohn 20.23 Whole sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose sins soever ye retain they are retained Nor Secondly can it be denied by any Man that is acquainted with the Sects of the Montanists Novatians Donatists and Meletians and understands the practice of the Primitive Church legible in the Writings of the Apostles ancient Fathers and Councils particularly that of Elvira in Spain held divers years before that at Nicaea and therefore counted as ancient as any the Church hath but that the cure of sin by penance is an unquestionable Tradition of the Apostles Not to mention many other obvious Texts to that purpose the most natural and primary meaning of St. Paul's charge to Timothy 1 Tim. 5.22 Lay hands suddenly on no man neither be partaker of other mens sins must needs be fetcht from that known Apostolical Custom of admitting lapsed Christians to penance and the Prayers of the Church by imposition of hands Thirdly and lastly Secret Confession of Sins otherwise not notorious in order to their cure hath been the inviolate practice of the Western bating their abuses aforesaid and also of the Eastern Churches particularly that of Constantinople even to this day and it is recommended and pressed as a duty incumbent on the generality of Christians as well by the ancient Fathers as modern Authors both of the Roman Church and also of the Reformation The Augustine Confession says peremptorily Impium esset ex Ecclesiâ tollere privatam Absolutionem That it were an ungodly a sacrilegious thing to rob the Church of Christ of private Absolution And Chemnitius in his Examen Concil Trid. gives a fivefold accompt of the use and profitableness of this Discipline of private Confession 1. For the information of the ignorant concerning the true knowledge the degrees and heinousness of sin and the right way of performing repentance 2. For Physick viz. how each sin is so to be cured and mortified that it may be avoided for the future and what amendment of life is to be opposed to such and such sins 3. For Counsel that in doubtful cases Pastours may advise and instruct their Flocks out of Gods Word 4. For Spiritual Comfort to relieve disturbed Consciences Lastly because Absolution is to be given only to such as appear truly penitent that the Pastour himself may be assured whether he
than every rash young Shimei will allow them the true Reasons whereof will soon appear if we consider who and what manner of Persons they are who do most industriously throw Contempt upon them and they must be either our professed Enemies or pretended Friends Now our Churches Enemies are reducible to three principal Herds or Bands The first whereof are the openly debauched profane and Men Atheistically disposed who think they were born at all adventures and came into the World as the Leviathan was sent into the Deep meerly to sport and take their pastime therein who are as wise in their own eyes as David's Fool and say in their hearts There is no God who laugh at all things sacred as being out of their Element and make no more accompt of Religion than of an ordinary piece of State-Policy It may be they wear the name of Christians at large and own themselves of ours rather than any other Church for fashions sake or saving their credit or some secular interest but if you examine their Principles and Practises more narrowly they will be found to belong rather to the Devil's Chappel For were they hearty and in earnest they could not possibly differ from all Sects of Religionists in the World who do constantly admire and reverence their respective Priests and Preachers in what quality or circumstances soever they be But the Grandees and most robust among these modern Sadduces don 't level their scoffs and reproaches so low as the inferiour Clergy the little Vicars and Curates that were impar congressus and a fitter task for some young beginner some Novice in Raillery who hath just parts and skill enough to make a Cobweb-Net that will take the lesser Flies but aim rather at the chiefest of our Church-Governors it being a more noble Conquest a more sure and expedite way to wound Religion that 's the great project through their sides They are so far from accompting the Elders that rule never so well worthy of double nay single Honour that they fear not to revile Gods highest Priests to deride slander and lampoon the most renowned Prelate even when he hath his most solemn audience when he is delivering his Embassie from the great Monarch of Heaven to his Vicegerent here on Earth So that it is no fault of our Religion or of the Ministry thereof but ruinous decay of Christian Piety supplanted of late by Unchristian Practise for the true Causes whereof I refer my Readers to that excellent Tractate whose Author 's Name the World is hitherto unworthy of which prompts this Herd of brutish Hectors to defie and contemn our Clergy and Religion both A second Band of our Churches Enemies are the Popish Recusants who taking the advantage of our late intestine differences and having learnt of St. Peter's pretented Successour to fish most advantagiously in troubled waters have much augmented if not doubled their ancient number And he that made such a grievous complaint of our being so much over-stock'd with Divines had never heard of the Iesuites brags beyond Sea sure Sir Edwyn Sandys tells us of that the English Seminaries abroad send forth more Priests than our two Universities at home do Ministers And where should the Scene of their Action be laid more properly than in their own Country What greater service can they do the Court of Rome than to infect and poison their Native Air with foreign Vapours Who more fit to throw the Kingdom into a Church-relapse than they who are so well acquainted with the Temper Language Manners Customs Laws and Religion of the Country It is not to be question'd but they and all the Proselytes they either find or make amongst us are no Favourers of our Religion or Clergy but do privately and openly when they dare calumniate and decry both as destructive to the Game and Interest they are to manage and the true and only reason of their contemning and vilifying us is an eager desire of enlarging their own Territories that the Romans might come in once again and take away both our Place and Nation And therefore that our Church neither is nor expects to be prized by them more than others they are pleas'd to call Hereticks because they cannot digest their corrupt Innovations for current Gospel is their Goodness more than our Desert The third and last Body of our Churches Enemies are the Fanatick Recusants in the other extream for though Manasseh declares fiercely against Ephraim and Ephraim exclaims as much against Manasseh yet both combine and unite their forces against the Common Enemy poor Iudah And truly to speak freely and give these latter their due I must needs say the Church of England hath suffer'd very much of late in her Reputation by their means for they are a sort of clamorous Zealots restless and troublesom Saints as ever pretended to be of Christs retinue who are for reforming Church and State and all things but themselves and their own pernicious Opinions Seneca's character of unstable Men seems to be calculated particularly for them Nihil liberè volunt nihil absolutè nihil semper for they know not what they would have and if you grant all their unreasonable demands they are not satisfied but still crying with the Daughters of the Horse-leech Give give They had too precise thoughts of themselves to continue in our Communion and therefore like the young brood of Vipers made their way through their Mothers Bowels to procure their own liberty And that there might be room for a new Model of Government necessity obliged them to pluck down the old one first To this end all their artifices especially Preachments were directed they crying out against Episcopacy as the children of Edom did of old against Ierusalem Down with it down with it even to the ground making nothing to call it opprobiously the Prelatical Faction though themselves are forc'd to confess it is such a Faction as hath troubled the Church ever since the Apostles times and by this means they quickly begat an odium in Mens Minds as well against the ancient Rites and Ceremonies of the Church as against the Persons of the Bishops and Orthodox Clergy for their sakes To them we owe all that Anarchy in Spiritual and Civil Matters which like a thick Cloud did so long overspread us and broke out at length into Thunder and Lightning about our ears 't was the fruit of their worthy Labours that our Goshen was turned into an Egypt by Usurping Tyrants who knew not Ioseph and the Rod of Aaron served for no other use a long time but to scourge the Sons of Levi. Nor is it any wonder that the prejudices they raised against our Liturgy and its Assertours are not yet worn out considering how presumptuously and in despight of all Law both Sacred and Civil the Nonconformists still keep up their private Conventicles to confirm the Brethren in all the false Notions they had formerly imbibed But all this while the true reason that this