Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
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B09389
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Reformed catholique, or, The true protestant
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L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing L1291; ESTC R179474
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23,474
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16
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REFORMED CATHOLIQUE OR THE True Protestant MATTH 24. 26. There shall arise FALSE CHRISTS and FALSE PROPHETS DVBLIN Reprinted M.DC.LXXIX The Reformed Catholique or the True Protestant THIS Paper should have come into the World under the form of a Letter as most Pamphlets of quality do of late if the Author had not made a Conscience of covering the Simplicity of his purpose under any sort of Disguise so that without so much as a single How do ye to usher it in he comes point blank to the Business in the very Title It may be look'd upon I know as a thing of Ill Omen to begin with an Alias But there 's neither Priest nor Highway-man in our Case and yet there be cause enough perhaps for a kind of Hue and Cry too for 't is a matter of great moment that every man should both go and be known by his right Name and peradventure never more necessary than in this juncture and in this particular and so to my Text. A Reformed Catholique properly so called is an Apostolieal Christian or a Son of the Church of England a true Protestant may be so to nay and many times he is so and many a Loyal Orthodox Reformed Catholique calls himself so and according to the stile of the Age he may be well enough said and accounted so to be But all this is only by Adoption and without any colour for it in the original of his Denomination Now a Protestant in strictness of speaking is a Lutheran which this Church does not in all points pretend to be and then the Characteristical Note of a Christian is Catholique so that the Appellation is too narrow for the Principle and draws on the very same Implication in a Protestant-Catholique which we make sport with in a Roman-Catholique that is to say the Soloecism of a particular Vniversality Here is enough already I suppose to furnish an Extract of as much Popery out of it as may recommend some hungry Informer to a Mornings-draught for we have a sort of people now a days that will read a mans Heart through his Ribs though they can hardly see his Nose on 's face and that give more Credit to their Ears than to their Eyes Now to ease the Reader in two or three peevish Points if he should chance to be over-critical and imperious I will tell him before-hand in a few words what he is to trust to To the first Question or Objection fairly supposed the Author is no disguised or concealed Papist but of the Communion of the Church of England train'd up in the strictest way of it and standing firm to it against all sorts of Provocation Discouragement Temptation and Argument and without warping to the Jesuits either on the right hand or on the left To the Second He is not set on to write this Discourse either directly or indirectly by any Hint Desire or Appointment whatsoever nor by any other Motive than the sense of what he owes to the Publique and to his Conscience and the Consideration of some small Present from the Book-seller if there be any thing got by 't A piece of Good Husbandry that he has learnt of his Superiors He has no design upon any Place at Court in 't nor upon any Church-Lease no not so much as a Reversion And all this is true by the Faith of a poor Gentleman that has worn his Doublet out at elbows in his Majesties Service It might be added that he 's grown old and Careless and that even Malice it self were lost upon him Now under these Circumstances I hope he may securely advance to tell you a little more of his mind So â—aâ— as Catholique and Protestant serve only as two several Names intending the self-same thing though the one by Protriety and the othâ—â— but bâ— Translation is all one to me whether of the two any man calls me all the danger is the countenancing of an ill Thing under a good Name The word Protestancy falls under a double acceptation the one as it denotes the Reformed Religion the other as it is taken for the Genus Generalissimum of all Dissenters from the Church of â—ome The former I do heartily embrace as transmitted to us from our Fore-fathers and Signed by the Blood of Martyrs authorized by the Holy Gospel and by the Law of the Land the common Bond of our Civil Peace and by Gods Blessing the Hopes and Means of our Eternal Salvation Now to the latter Acceptation I am not at all satisfied with it and I have both Reason and Experience to warrant me in that dâ—slike As to my Reason First It is an Agreement upon an Opposition and next it is an Agreement of several parties disagreeing among themselves which carries the face rather of a Confederacy than a Religion For it is not the Opposing of Error but the asserting of a Truth that mast do the work One Error may be opposed by another even in a single person as one man robs his Neighbour and a third robs him Here 's one Injustice opposed by another So that as it is an Agreement in Opposition 't is a hundred to one there will be Error in 't But the Opposers themselves being subdivided 't is impossible it should be Right for the very Essence and Soul of Religion are here wanting that is to say Charity and Vnity And for the proof of this beyond all Contradiction let but any man look back into the late Troubles and see when the Factions had destroyed the King and the Church which they called the Common Enemy how they fell presently to worrying of one another when the Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Quakers Seekers Ranters Antinomians and twenty other wild sorts of Sectaries under the title of Protestants and under the pretence of opposing Popery destroyed the very Cause they covenanted to assert a Protestant-Church a Protestant Prince and a Protestant-People filled the Land with Confusion Sacriledge and Herefie made the English Nation a Reproach and a Scandal to the Christian World And so soon as they had possessed themselves of the Power and Revenue of the Kingdom every mans hand was against his Brother for the Booty To proceed now to the matter of Experience I would fain see any one Instance from the veâ—y Reformation it self to this day when ever there was a Clamour advanced upon this Point of a Conjunct Opposition of Popery that the Church of England was not struck at in the Confederacy and that too not by blind Inferences and tacit Presumption but by Overt Acts and a Notoriety of Practice That is to say the Men that stickled under this Notion did positively declare the Government by Bishops to be Antichristian and the Discipline and Common Prayers of the Church to be Popery and Superstition yes and the Civil Administration it self also to be downright Tyranny They did just like the Fellows in Hatton-Garden that stole Money and Plate under the pretence of Searching for Priests and for the Credit
we have in truth rather Title c. to Hâ—m then He to Us Adding that when Kings themselves be ill ones God not only approves of their removal but even himself does it This he supports upon Texts extreamly misapply'd Let it be agreed now that a Prince is rather constituted for the good of the people then the people for the advantage of the Prince But let it be granted also on the other side that Providence has made Order so necessary to the well-being of mankind that Tyranry it self is yet more tolerable than either Anarchy or Sedition So that in the matter of Obedience to Superiors we find our convenience even in our Duty He seems to infer that because God himself does many times remove ill Kings that therefore he approves of our doing so too But first we are not to draw Gods extraordinary ways into precedent By the same Rule plunder was formerly justified upon a Scriptural Commission for the spoiling of the Egyptians Secondly The very admittance that an ill King may be remov'd makes way to the destruction of a good one for 't is but saying he is so to make him so and it leaves him barely at the mercy of the people And this is not all neither for it turns up the very root of Government and casts humane Affairs into a circulation of confusion The two Houses depos'd the King the Commons the Lords the Multitude they deposed the Commons and all upon the same Charge of Misdemeanour So that the Trustee being still accomptable to those that entrusted him the Order of Government is inverted and the last Appeal lodg'd in the Rabble It is a strange thing that our Protestant Dissenters should so unanimously agree in their methods of opposing Authority and yet keep at so greaâ— a distance in all things else for how scrupulous soever they may may seem to be in set forms of Devotion they are the strictest people in the world in the observance of a set form of Wrangling with the Government For an Out-cry of persecution dos as naturally follow a Plea for Liberty as one foot follows another Doth not such a day as this says our Quaerist loudly call for Repentance that Protestants have been persecuting each other and for Unity in affection among all protestant Subjects whether conforming or dissenting in some lesser points and that as brethren they unite in such a Combination of conjunction as was in Q. Elizabeths time with good success to defend the Crown Religion and Kingdom against the common Enemy of Mankind Since the persecution of this Age lies so heavy upon him and that nothing will serve his tuâ—n but the uniting of Protestants in such a Combination as was in the days of Q. Elizabeth it will not be amiss to look a little into the Behaviour of the protestant Dissenters in those days and the Indulgence which they received fom that Gracious Princess The Non-conformists that fled in Q. Maries time to Frankfort and went off from the English reformed Catholiques there to the protestant Dissenters at Geneva these Non-conformists I say returned for England upon Q. Elizabeths coming to the Crown and for the first ten years of her Reign pâ—y'd her so hard with Libels Clamours and seditious Consultations that betwixt the Papists on the one hand and the Protestant Dissenters one the other she had much a do to secure the peace of her Government And not being in condition to venture upon any course rigor or severity the Protestant Dissenters in the 14th year of her Reign erected a Model of their own call'd it the Church libell'd the Queen Parliament and Lords and afterward entred into a formal Conspiracy against her Majesty and Council which being detected some were executed and others imprison'd So that at last by one severe Law of the 35th of her Reign she put an end to that Confederacy Here was the Vnity of the Combination our Pamphleter speaks of and we 'l give ye now the provision it self that did the business with the prescribed form of their Submission The penalties were Imprisonment without Bail or Main-prize for being present at unlawful Conventicles The Offender to be discharg'd if within three months be made his open Submission and Acknowledgment in the Form by the said Statute appointed But in case of Recusancy to conform within that time he was requir'd to abjure the Realm and in case of refusing to abjure or of not departing within a limited time or of returning without Licence to be proceeded against â—s a Felon without Benefit of Clergy Here follows the Form of Submission I A. B. do humbly confess and acknowledge that I have grievously offended God in contemning her Majesties lawful Covernment and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing Divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting disorder'd and unlawful Conventicles and Assemblies under the pretence and colour of Exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same c. You see here what Quarter was both given and taken under Q. Elizabeth which shews that the Quaerist was little read in History to appeal to the practices of those times either for the Innocence of the party or the forbearance of them But hear what Englands Interest says to this matter Oh! lay to heart says he the grievous Spoils and Ruins that have been laid upon your harmless Neighbours for near these twenty years Sixty pounds distrain'd for Twelve Two hundred for Sixty The Flocks taken out of the Fold the Herd from the Stall Not a Cow left to give Milk to the Orphans nor a Bed for the Widow to lie on Whole Barns of Corn swept away and not a penny returned And all this for worshipping God according to their Conscience If you says he to the Free-holders will either compel or persecute your selves or chuse such as do you hate the Papists but not Popery This is so errant a Cant of Begging as if the Protestant Dissenters had served their Trade in Moor-fields and it runs too in the very tone and stile of their petitions and admonitions to Q. Elizabeth and so down by a clear Succession to this instant There were Citations Degradings and Deprivavations some in the Marshalseas some in the White-Lyon some in the Gatehouse at Westminster others in the Counter or in the Clink or in Bridewell or in Newgate How many good mens deaths have the Bishops been the cause of How many have they driven to leave their Ministry and live by Physick Men have been miserably handled with Revilings Imprisonments Banishments c. If this persecution be not provided for great trouble will come of it Under K. James no man they said could be assured of his Lands or Life And under the late King how were these poor people oppressed by Fines Imprisonments Stigmatizings Deprivations suspensions excommunicated outlaw'd beggar'd proceeded against with punishments pâ—cuniary and corporeal nay death it self And now they are