Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A61457
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An account of the growth of deism in England
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Stephens, William, d. 1718.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing S5459; ESTC R19943
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19,063
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34
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Christian Faith puts upon the ill-nature of Divines when they are disputing about matters of Religion 'T is common for Philosophers Lawyers Physicians c. to differ about matters which concern their Professions and write one against another But you will find some Temper and Decorum observed in their Writings But let the Controversy be about any Branch of Christian Faith and then see the Odium Theologorum the Malice of Divines in the late Writings of two of your Church Doctors against each other at least this shews that Christian Faith doth not improve the Temper of such Men who are of mean Birth and narrow Education And I cannot but observe that your Protestant Malice is under a worse Management than the Popish they only thirst for the Blood of Protestants but you are for sucking one anothers Blood as when for the Service of King Charles the II. who was Head of your Church and his Popish Brother the Blood of the best Protestants in England and some of them of your own Church was to be spilt the Court Blood-suckers viz. Attorney general and Judges besides Juries and Evidence were all of 'em chosen Men out of your own Church and the Posse of the Clergy was raised to hold their Heads to the Block by Preaching the Doctrine of Passive Obedience But in requital it must be confessed that your Clergy require the King to do their Persecuting Journey-work with the same Insolence as the Popish Priesthood use For must not the Sovereign Monarch of England Scotland France and Ireland by his Authority Royal execute the Decrees and Anathema's of the Arch-deacons and Bishops Chancellors by Imprisoning his loyal and useful Subjects for not conforming to their Ceremonies If a King will submit to this Drudgery he shall have the vox Cleri of his side and be as great as Noise and fulsom Flattery can make him but in the mean time is really King but of one Moiety of his People whilst the danger which the other half apprehend from the Secular Arm directed by Spiritual Power of Necessity weaneth their Hearts from the Government Thus Charles the II. who for two Years after his Return reigned in the Hearts of all his People was by the Act of Uniformity reduced to be King of the Church-party and at last whilst the Popish and Protestant Priesthood zealously contended whose Property he should be like the Truth among Controversial Divines he was lost in the Scuffle He instanced in likewise the late King James who said he had it in his power to be universally beloved and obey'd beyond any King of England this Age has produced His Right to the Crown was owned by all his Wilfulness had passed upon the Church of England Party for Magnanimous Resolution which struck such an Awe upon them that they were coming to a Temper and would have consented to a Toleration of Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholicks too provided their Maintenance might be continued to them Thus the Heart of all England had been set upon the King but the Popish Priesthood would be content with nothing less than delivering the whole Nation to Satan and their King must execute the dreadful Anathema though 't was manifest that he must thereby lessen himself to the size of one of the 7 Kings of Kent for he could be Sovereign of no more than the Two hundredth part of the People For King Charles in numbering the People had found that the Proportion between Papist and Protestant was as 1 to 200 whereas had his own Priesthood been so favourable to him as to have excused him from executing that Satanical Power which by a Right purely Divine was vested in Sacred Majesty his Reign might have been happy and his Memory precious What an unhappy Effect had the Spirit of Father Laud upon King Charles the First And what hath brought Lewis the XIV to the present Diminution of his Glory but that haughty Insolence and unnatural Cruelty in Persecuting his own Subjects which Father la Chaise has inspired him with What Figure will this Grand Monarch make in Story His Name will pollute the Annals of this Age and his cowardly Conquests be the Scorn of Posterity Now from all that he had said he concluded that for Luck-sake as well as to preserve his good Nature he would be cautious of being at least a zealous Christian 8. 'T was not long since I met one of my old Acquaintance who told me that he had lately cast off these Prejudices he had conceived against the Christian Faith by the Assistance of a Book called The Five Letters of Inspiration By the last of those Letters he was convinced of the reality of reveal'd Religion from the Intrinsick value and Excellency thereof and he was fully confirmed in his Judgment by a late Book called The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scripture Upon this he had read over the Old-Testament once and the New several times with great attention of Mind Indeed he always thought the Moral part of the Bible very good but then he also thought that by the strength of his own Reason he could have written as good a Moral himself But by the last of these Books he was convinced that he was indebted to Revelation more than he thought of and considering how long the Ceremonial Law had obtain'd among the Jews and what a profound respect they paid to the Scribes Pharisees and Spiritual Guides and Rulers he plainly saw that there was need enough of Miracle to bear down their Prejudices to make 'em leave their Ceremonies and listen to that excellent Moral which Christ gave 'em nay he was convinced that no Miracles were strong enough to prevail over the Priest or a Priest-ridden People to become Proselytes to the Doctrine of universal Love and Charity for said he if a Teacher should now be sent from Heaven with this Message that all the Protestant Parties in England should be reconciled and live well with one another making nothing necessary to their religious Communion but what Christ had appointed and such Circumstances as Time and Place and what in the nature of the thing was needful and if this Teacher's Mission were confirm'd by Miracle it would have as he thought no better effect upon our several Sects of Clergy and those who are bigotted to their Parties than it had upon the Pharisees and their Disciples of old Having heard him speak so sharply against the Clergy after his old way I could not but tell him that I perceived he was but almost a Christian for he who loveth the Institution of Christ cannot but respect those who are the Ministers thereof at least I hoped that he would pay a respect to the Clergy of the Church of England which was the best Reformed Church in the World and therefore I expected that he was already a Member of our Church He reply'd that he should always be ready to pay his respect to every good Man of what Order or Degree
soever he should always be willing to hear a good Minister Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to him and exhort him to the sincere Practice of it That he was ready to contribute his share to the Maintenance of such Ministers and to join with that Church-of England Congregation near to which he liv'd in publick Worship but yet he could not condemn the Worship of other Congregations nor exclude himself from joyning with them as occasion should serve him So that as to Church-membership he could be a Member of any Church which would own him upon the terms of Faith and Practice contained in the Book he mentioned concerning the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion c. But still he conceiv'd that Church-Communion in holy Offices was designed only to raise his Devotion towards God not towards the Clergy which made him admire the unparallell'd Impudence of the Roman Priesthood who measure the Religion of all Christians by their Devotion to the See of Rome i. e. indeed to themselves and he doubted whether any Church were sufficiently Reformed from Popery which made any Doctrines of Faith necessary to Salvation that were not declared so in the Gospels and where the Clergy would always distinguish between Church and State and give the Precedency to themselves But yet he would join with any Church as far as it promoted the Honour of God and separate from it wherein on pretence of Religion he saw â—â—at it aimed at a By-end of its own Here I urged him again to joyn to our Church which had no other design but God's Glory To this he said that he should be glad that the Church of England would own him though he could not be of their Party He would willingly pass as a Church-man for his Credit-sake for said he though a Man doth ever so firmly believe Jesus Christ to be the Messiah whom God had of old promised and in due time sent to give us a perfect Rule of Life in order to make us truly religious here and ever happy hereafter and though a Man should shew forth his Faith by an agreeable course of Life in doing Justice loving Mercy and an humble walking with God yet if he were not owned as a Member of some Church he would by all Churches be accounted if not an Atheist yet a Sceptic a Man of no settled Principle but own who has his Religion to choose For if you look over the State of Religion as it standeth in Christendom there is no Church whatsoever which will accept you as a Member of its Communion but upon some particular terms of Belief or Practice which Christ never appointed and it may be such as an honest and a wise Christian cannot consent to I am not more able to give up my Reason to the Church of England than to give up my Senses to the Church of Rome it looks like a Trick in all Churches to take away the use of Mens Reason that they may render us Vassals and Slaves to all their Dictates and Commands But what greater slavery than to force on Men a Belief of such things as necessary to Salvation of which 't is not possible to form any Idea Though I am satisfied there is no such thing as a change of Bread into the Flesh of Christ yet I can form an Idea that such a thing may be that the same Power which changed Earth into a Man may change Bread into Flesh But I can frame to my self no Idea of what your Church Teacheth in the Sacrament that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received of the faithful And when I ask how can this be understood by a Protestant who believeth that there is no other Body but that of Bread I am told that the Church meaneth it in a Spiritual Sense Now I have try'd and find it impossible for me to form to my self an Idea of a Body verily and indeed in a Spiritual Sense And therefore I must say 't is an unwise and a hard Thing for any Church to impose absurd or unintelligible Notions especially such Speculations which tend to make no body the better as necessary to Salvation for Wise Men and such who will take Courage to examine what they Believe will not submit to such an Usurpation and weak Men are kept all their Life long in Fears and Doubts of their Eternal State as being always uncertain whether they firmly believe such Doctrines or no. Besides this said he your Church will require me to believe other Absurdities as bad as these as that Kings and Bishops have a Divine Right to that Power which they exercise over us whereas with my own Eyes I saw our Great and Gracious King accept the Crown of England as the Gift of the People And I see as plainly that Bishops are an Order of Men of their own not of Christ's making I was told that our Bishops Order was founded in that of the 12 Apostles and the Presbyters Order in the 70 Disciples Upon this I resolved to see if the 12 and the 70 were different Orders or no and read over the 10th Chap. of Matthew the 3d and 6th of Mark and the 9th of Luke in which places the Power which Christ gave to the 12 is set forth which amounteth to this viz. a Charge to Preach the Gospel a Power to work Miracles in casting out Devils healing the Sick c. And I also read in the 10th Chapter of Luke that the 70 were sent forth for the same Reason and with the same express Power as were the 12 viz. To preach the Gospel heal the Sick and cast out Devils vers 2.9.17 And he telleth the 70 at the 16th Verse That he who heareth them heareth him and he who despiseth them despiseth him as he had said to the 12 in Matthew 10.40 Indeed they were only added to the number of the 12 Because as 't is said there the Harvest was great and the Labourers few i. e. because Multitudes followed Christ and were disposed to become Christians therefore he encreased the number of his Apostles or Teaching Disciples I can find no Footsteps of any Jurisdiction given to the 12 over the 70 or indeed over any body else and in the 18th Chapter of Matthew where Christ speaketh of binding and loosing 't is manifest from the first Verse that his discourse was made to his Disciples So in the 20th of John the Holy-Ghost and Power of remitting and retaining Sins was given to the Disciples which met together after Christ's death vers 19. in which meeting there might be some of the 70 as well as some of the 12 'T is certain the 70 received the Holy-Ghost and if Baptism be a Key of Admission into the Church they had it If binding or loosing be declaring wherein we are bound in duty and wherein we may use our liberty if remitting and retaining Sins be declaring what Iniquity God will forgive and what he will not the 70 shared