Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A46813
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Beaufrons, or, A new-discovery of treason under the fair-face and mask of religion, and of liberty and conscience : in an answer to the Protestant reconciler ... / by one of His Majestie's chaplains.
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Jenner, David, d. 1691.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing J657; ESTC R32980
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46,367
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116
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decayed to Reform the Church when corrupted and to Protect the same when Reformed This is the Supremacy which the German Princes being the first Reformers Assumed to themselves exercising their own Authority in Ordering and Setling Church-Matters within their own Dominions And because they all Protested against the Pope's Supremacy and Defended that of their own Therefore were they called Protestants In like manner King Henry the Eighth was the first Protestant Prince in England for no other Reason But because he was the first King of England since the Reformation who strenuously vindicated his Own Regal Supremacy And Protested against the Pope's Usurpation and Tyranny over Kings and their Subjects For which the Pope of Rome Excommunicated King Henry the Eighth and Branded him with the Name of Heretick and Protestant And notwithstanding King Henry's being a perfect and Rigid Papist in all points of Doctrine according to the Church of Rome yet because he Assumed his Own Supremacy and Abjured that of the Pope's he is Therefore styled and that very truely A Protestant And our Statute-Laws call all them who deny the King's Supremacy Recusants whether they be Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists or Quakers The Law Names all Recusants and indeed such They are and Not Protestants For as in the Church of Rome no man is counted a Papist but onely he who declares for the Pope's Supremacy So in the Church of England no man is nor ought to be reckoned a Protestant but onely he who in Thought Word and Deed is for the King's Supremacy as above stated These things being Premised We are of Opinion That the Reconciler has Mistaken his own Title for in equity and honesty he should have Entitled Himself and his Book The Recusant and not the Protestant Reconciler For we know no Protestants in England that need any Reconciliation unless it be the Beaufronts alias Fair-faced Protestants Who have God and the King in their Mouths but the Devil in their Hearts Who Speak their Prince fair to his face but will Wound his Reputation and cut his Throat behind his Back Who will take and swallow all Oaths particularly those of Supremacy and Allegiance And yet will enter into a Scotch-Covenant or into a Shaftsburian-ASSOCIATION and Plot Treason and Rebellion against their King and his Government Who will cry-up the Church of England and yet cry-down the Bishops Who will on a Sunday-Morning go to Divine-Service in the Parish-Church and receive the Sacrament Kneeling and yet in the Afternoon Contrary to their Oath of Allegiance will go to a Seditious Conventicle These are the Tares among the Wheat the very Pests of the Nation And indeed They want a Reconciliation that is Of their ungodly Principles and Practices to Piety Of their Knavery to Honesty Of their Perjury and Hypocrisie to Truth Of their Faction to Loyalty Except these dissembling Beaufronts we know no Protestants that need any Reconciliation for in England there are no Protestants except the Beaufronts but onely the true-hearted and Loyal Episcopal men who in Heart and Conscience Own and Protest for according to our Churches Articles 34 36 37. 1. The King's Supremacy 2. The Churches Authority in Ordering Rites and Ceremonies 3. The Episcopal Government as now established Asserting the Distinct Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons 4. Who give due Obedience to the Churches Orders and Constitutions These are the onely Protestants in England As for all others the Laws of the Realm Notifie them by the Name of Recusants So then it is a most Certain Truth though a Paradox to the Vulgar That although there be Myriads of Men in England who pass for Protestants and call themselves Protestants yet in truth and reality they are Recusants They all Combining and Siding with the Papists against the King's Supremacy do by so doing declare themselves to be No Protestants And the onely way to Reconcile these Recusants unto our Church is in the first place to persuade them to become Protestants that is to say to persuade them to Own and Protest for the King's Supremacy in Ecclesiastick Matters and to become Obedient to his Laws Civil and Ecclesiastick for till this be done as was said before They are No Protestants And of this Nature and Character are all the Dissenters in England to wit Recusants and not Protestants For they all deny the King's Supremacy which is the Essence and Foundation of Protestantism in Opposition to Popery And whoever pleads for them to be Reconciled to the Church of England without an open Recantation of their Popish Principles as does the Reconciler is guilty of a Praemunire and smells more of a Papist than of a Protestant This then being the proper Notion of a Protestant We once more petition the Reconciler That he would be pleased to inform us who are the Protestants for whom he so earnestly pleads and unto whom he so passionately craves a Condescension may be granted by the King and the Governours If he says They be the Dissenting-Brethren as he has it in his Title Page then he grosly mistakes himself For the Dissenters are No Protestants Because they all deny The King's Supremacy Which is the onely Badge and Characteristical Note of a Protestant Now that All the Dissenters do so is easily proved by their own Avowed and Declared Principles and Practices The Dissenters in England although they be very numerous yet they may be reduced unto four Ranks and Sects which will comprehend them all at least all those which are of any Bulk and Note among us Such as the Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Quakers All which Sects we shall in order prove to be No Protestants CHAP. II. The Presbyterians No Protestants THe Presbyterians are no Protestants in as much as They Deny The King's Supremacy And in Opposition thereunto They Set up their own Ecclesiastick Consistory above the King and his Power For by their Consistorian Power They pretend they may and actually they have censured and deposed their own Natural Prince raised War by Oath and Covenant against Him when he would not yield himself a slave to their Demands and Consistorian Tyranny This is too well known in Scotland and England and needs no farther proof And although they do declare with the French Presbyterians French Disci Eccles c. 5. of the Consistory That a Magistrate may be called and employed in the charge of an Elder in the Consistory yet it is with such a Restraint and Limitation as that the Execution of one of the Functions must not hinder the other and bring no prejudice to the Church that is to their Consistorian Power which is to over-rule and controll the Magistrate in matters Ecclesiastick It is to be Noted That the first Presbyterian Consistory erected in Opposition to Monarchy and Episcopacy that ever we heard of was first in Geneva Setled by Calvin and Beza And the First Presbyterian Confistory Setled in Scotland was by John Knox who came from Geneva and brought from thence the Platform
any Civil Magistrates For now under the Gospel nothing is to Govern the Church of God Calvin Instit l. 4. c. 20. §. 1 2. but onely the Spirit of God And because the Spirit of God is invisible Therefore the Regimen of God's Church must also be invisible and spiritual Upon this account it is That All or most of the Anabaptists Cry-down all External Forms and Orders of Church Polity and Government And many of them decry the Religious use of any outward visible Elements such as Water in Baptism Or Bread and Wine in the Eucharist Because now we are to be Baptized onely with the Holy Ghost And now we are Onely to eat and drink Christ's Body and Bloud Spiritually by Faith in our hearts and not Carnally with our Mouths Now by the illumination of God's Holy Spirit without the Ministery of the Word and Sacraments Men may be saved Hence it was Simpson Ch. Hist p. 445. that the Anabaptist Gasper Suenkfeldius born in Silesia maintained That the Outward Ministery of the Word and Sacraments was not necessary to eternal life Their General Opinion is That the Supreme Magistrate highly sins when he makes Laws and Orders for the Outward Worship of God and for the External Celebration of the Sacraments or for any thing else which is visibly to be observed in Divine Worship They being of opinion That every Christian is left to the particular Guidance and Persuasion of the Holy Ghost And that he is to doe nothing but what he is persuaded to doe by some secret and immediate Impulse of the Spirit 2. As to matters of State They deny the Civil Magistrate to have any Right unto the Secular Sword But that All are to vail unto Christ's Sceptre of Grace Hence it is that They deny Princes to have power to put to Death any Malefactours though never so Criminal And if any of their Faction be executed although it be for Murther Treason and Rebellion yet they will cry out of Persecution and will Canonize such an one for a Martyr Declaring to the World that that their Brother died giving his Testimony to the Truth as died Scot the Regicide and that according to his Duty and Conscience he resisted unto Bloud the Anti-Gospel Powers as they Maliciously at least Erroneously Nick-Name all Civil Magistracy For Totam politioe rationem rem esse pollutam Calv. ut supra c. They condemn the whole Polity of Civil Government as a thing corrupt and Anti Christian And affirm Nec judicia sint nec Leges nec Magistratus c. That in these glorious times of the Gospel there ought to be no Laws Statutes or Magistracies obliging Christians to the obedience of Humane Ordinances nor any Tye put upon men whereby their Christian Liberty may be obstructed For now Alexand Ross View of Relig §. 12. p. 362. Mortui sumus per Christum elementis hujus Mundi c. We are dead through Christ unto the Elements and Ordinances of this World And therefore upon this account they style themselves Liberi Free-men because they being in Christ are made Free by Christ from all Obedience unto Humane Laws Hence it is that They all deny to take an Oath and to Swear before a Lawfull Civil Magistrate And therefore they are so far from taking the Oath of Supremacy as that they will not so much as take the Oath of Allegiance So that the King has from these Men no other Security for the preservation of his own Life and of his Subjects Properties than their Bare-Word and Promise Which word and promise they may and have Broke and again will soon break when ever the Spirit shall Dictate and Reveal to them That it is for God's Glory so to doe For all Anabaptists are of this Belief scil That God revealeth his Will P. Sim's Ch. Hist 443. not onely by the written word but also and that very frequently by immediate Visions and Dreams the which the Saints i. e. themselves ought as well to follow as the written word So that through pretended Revelations and sudden impulses of the Spirit they have oft times in their Zeal been irritated to draw the Sword against the Civil Magistrate and have sheathed it in the Bowels of many Innocent Christian people who would not be carryed away with their wind of Doctrine And they have been so far hurried on and actuated by a Spirit of Delusion as that in imitation of Jonathan and his Armour Bearer a few of them have essayed to chase thousands though they have wretchedly fallen and miserably miscarried in their bloudy Attempts A fresh and desperate instance of this we have had in London since the King 's Happy Restauration when the Wine Cooper Thomas Venner an Anabaptist and a Fifth-Monarchy Man who had before in 1657 stiled himself the Champion of Christ's Monarchy on earth and an Enemy to all Monarchies besides Christ's He did on January 7 8 9 1660 with about Sixty of his own Opinion Armed with Back Breast and Head-piece enter London-streets crying King Jesus King Jesus threatning present Death to all those that would not yield and side with him for K. Jesus And such was their Madness as that they believed That they and the rest of their own judgment were called by the Spirit of God to reform the wicked Anti-christian World and to make all the Earthly Powers which they called Babylon subservient to the Kingdom of Jesus And in Order hereunto Venner and his Company Vowed never to Sheath their Swords till the Powers of the World were subdued And although their Number was but small not exceeding Threescore yet they taught and believed that One of them should subdue a Thousand making an account that when they had conquered England they should have passed over the Seas and have subdued France Spain Italy and all Christendom if not all the other parts of the World And thus have brought Satan and all the Kingdoms of the Earth under the Sceptre and Obedience of King Jesus Dr. Featley and other Writers have noted that the Anabaptists have been the Great if not the first Incendiaries and Fomenters of Rebellion against their Lawfull Princes And that it is impossible they should be otherwise unless they should act contrary and inconsistently to their own avouched Principles For the two fundamental Articles of their Faith are these scil 1. That the Offices of Kings and Emperours and of all Civil Magistrates are not approved by God under the New Testament There being in their judgment no other Monarchy or Government but onely that of King Jesus 2. That no man ought to take any Corporal Oath or to enter into any Covenant to preserve or to obey the Secular Powers Royalties and Dignities there being no Covenant but that of Grace among Christians And therefore saith the fore-mentioned Historian It was no wonder that Men who had laid such Grounds of Seditious Doctrine were also found in their lives to be Authours of Seditious