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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61586	Proposals tender'd to the consideration of both Houses of Parliament for uniting the Protestant interest for the present, and preventing divisions for the future together with the declaration of K. Charles II, concerning ecclesiastical affairs, and some proposals of terms of union between the Church of England and dissenters / long since published by the Reverend Dean of S. Pauls.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.; Charles II, King of England, 1630-1685.; England and Wales. Sovereign (1660-1685 : Charles II). Declaration to all his loving subjects of his kingdom of England and dominion of Wales concerning ecclesiastical affairs.	1689 (1689)	Wing S5621; ESTC R8098	25,861	37

abundant evidence could in the least degree startle Us or make Us swerve from it and that nothing can be proposed to manifest Our Zeal and Affection for it to which we will not readily consent And We said then that We did hope in due time Our self to propose somewhat for the Propagation of it that will satisfie the World that We have always made it both Our Care and Our Study and have enough observed what is most like to bring Disadvantage to it And the truth is We do think Our Self the more competent to propose and with God's Assistance to determine many things now in difference from the time We have spent and the experience We have had in most of the Reformed Churches abroad in France in the Low-Countries and in Germany where We have had frequent Conferences with the most learned Men who have unanimously lamented the great Reproach the Protestant Religion undergoes from the distempers and too notorious Schisms in matters of Religion in England And as the most learned among them have always with great Submission and Reverence acknowledged and magnified the established Government of the Church of England and the great Countenance and Shelter the Protestant Religion received from it before these unhappy times So many of them have with great Ingenuity and Sorrow confessed that they were too easily misled by mis-information and prejudice into some dis-esteem of it as if it had too much complyed with the Church of Rome whereas they now acknowledg it to be the best Fence God hath yet raised against Popery in the World And We are perswaded they do with great Zeal wish it restored to its old Dignity and Veneration When We were in Holland We were attended by many grave and learned Ministers from hence who were looked upon as the most able and principal Assertors of the Presbyterian Opinions with whom We had as much Conference as the multitude of Affairs which were then upon Us would permit Us to have and to Our great Satisfaction and Comfort found them Persons full of Affection to Us of Zeal for the Peace of the Church and State and neither Enemies as they have been given out to be to Episcopacy or Liturgy but modestly to desire such Alterations in either as without shaking Foundations might best allay the present Distempers which the Indisposition of the time and the tenderness of some mens Consciences had contracted For the better doing whereof We did intend upon Our first arrival in this Kingdom to call a Synod of Divines as the most proper expedient to provide a proper Remedy for all those Differences and dis-satisfactions which had or should arise in matters of Religion and in the mean time We published in Our Declaration from Breda a Liberty to tender Consciences and that no Man should be disquieted or called in question for differences of Opinion in matter of Religion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom and that We shall be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament as upon mature deliberation shall be offered to Us for the full granting that Indulgence Whilest We continued in this temper of mind and Resolution and have so far complyed with the perswasion of particular Persons and the distemper of the time as to be contented with the exercise of Our Religion in Our own Chapel according to the constant practice and Laws established without enjoyning that practice and the observation of those Laws in the Churches of the Kingdom in which We have undergone the Censure of many as if we were without that Zeal for the Church which We ought to have and which by God's grace We shall always retain We have found Our Self not so candidly dealt with as We have deserved and that there are unquiet and restless Spirits who without abating any of their own distemper in recompence of the Moderation they find in Us continue their bitterness against the Church and endeavour to raise Jealousies of Us and to lessen Our Reputation by their Reproaches as if We were not true to the Professions VVe have made And in ●●der thereunto they have very unseasonably caused to be Printed Published and Dispersed throughout the Kingdom a Declaration heretofore Printed in Our Name during the time of Our being in Scotland of which We shall say no more than that the Circumstances by which We were enforced to sign that Declaration are enough known to the World And that the worthiest and greatest part of that Nation did even then detest and abhorr the ill usage of Us in that Particular when the same Tyranny was exercised there by the Power of a few ill Men which at that time had spread it self over this Kingdom and therefore We had no reason to expect that We should at this Season when We are doing all We can to wipe out the Memory of all that hath been done amiss by other Men and We thank God have wiped it out of Our own remembrance have been Our Self assaulted with those Reproaches which We will likewise forget Since the Printing this Declaration several seditious Pamphlets and Quaeries have been published and scattered abroad to infuse Dislike and Jealousies into the Hearts of the People and of the Army and some who ought rather to have repented the former Mischief they have wrought than to have endeavoured to improve it have had the hardiness to publish that the Doctrine of the Church against which no Man with whom We have conferred hath excepted ought to be reformed as well as the Discipline This over-passionate and turbulent way of proceeding and the Impatience We find in many for some speedy determination in these matters whereby the Minds of Men may be Composed and the Peace of the Church established hath prevailed with Us to invert the method We had proposed to Our Self and even in order to the better calling and composing of a Synod which the present Jealousies will hardly agree upon by the assistance of God's blessed Spirit which We daily invoke and supplicate to give some determination Our Self to the matters in difference until such a Synod may be called as may without Passion or Prejudice give us such farther assistance towards a perfect union of Affections as well as submission to Authority as is necessary And We are the rather induced to take this upon Us by finding upon the full Conference We have had with the learned Men of several Perswasions that the Mischiefs under which both the Church and State do at present suffer do not result from any form'd Doctrine or Conclusion which either Party mainta●● 〈◊〉 avows but from the Passion and Appetite and Interest of particular Persons who contract greater prejudice to each other from those Affections than would naturally rise from their Opinions and those distempers must be in some degree allayed before the meeting in a Synod can be attended with better success than their meeting in other places and their discourses in Pulpits have hitherto been and till

PROPOSALS Tender'd to the Consideration of Both HOUSES of PARLIAMENT For Uniting the Protestant Interest for the Present And preventing Divisions for the Future Together with the DECLARATION OF K. CHARLES II. Concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs And some Proposals of TERMS of UNION BETWEEN THE Church of England AND DISSENTERS Long since published By the Reverend Dean of S. Pauls LONDON Printed for Henry Clark and sold by the Book-sellers of London and Westminster M DC LXXX IX Humble and Modest PROPOSALS For Uniting the Protestant Interest I Doubt not but every Pious and Sober Protestant of this Nation cannot but be heartily troubled to observe those passionate Differences and unchristian Dissentions which daily increase among Brethren who are united in one and the same Doctrin of their Religion and reformed from the Errors and Superstitions of the Church of Rome Upon the due Consideration of which every one who wisheth Peace and Prosperity to the Kingdom he lives in ought to consider what should be the Occasion of those unhappy and ruinous Divisions we have so long suffered under and to offer probable means for composing them As to their first Rise I doubt not but they ow their Original to the different manner of the Reformation and the establishing of the Orders which each Church did think fit and convenient for it self as the Reverend and Pious Mr. Hooker acquaints us which were so peremptorily established under that high commanding Form which rendered them to the People as things everlastingly required by the Law of that Lord of Lords against whose Statutes there is no Exception to be taken by which means it came to pass that one Church could not but accuse and condemn another of Disobedience to the Will of Christ in those things where manifest Difference was between them Whereas the self-same Orders allowed but yet established in more wary and suspense manner as being to stand in Force till God should give the Opportunity of some General Conference what might be best for them afterwards to do This I say had both prevented all occasion of just dislike which others might take and reserved a greater Liberty unto the Authors themselves of entring into farther Consultation afterwards which though never so necessary they could easily now admit without some fear of Derogation from their Credit And therefore that which once they had done they became for ever after resolute to maintain Now if we consider the shortness of that time wherein our first Reformation continued under Edward the Sixth and the Persecution in Queen Mary's reign which forced many Pious and Learned Clergymen of the Church of England to flee into Foreign Countries as Zurick Embden Basil Strasburg Frankford Geneva c. for the Preservation of their Religion and Lives where they frequently conversed with those Eminent Divines who were the great Reformers there 't is no Wonder that some of them should return better pleased with their Discipline than their own especially considering that several of them had intimate Acquaintance and Conversation with one of the Reformers whom the Reverend Mr. Hooker thought incomparably the wisest Man Man that ever the French Church did enjoy since the Hour it enjoyed him In Queen Elizabeth's King Iames and K. Charles the First 's Reigns 't is well known how our Differences increased until that unhappy War broke out by which the Non-conforming Interest prevailed so that the Presbyterian Discipline was endeavoured to be fixed as the established Form of Government in this Nation our Universities Preachers Writings Education c. were generally modelled thereto by which means the greatest number of the trading part of the Kingdom several of the Gentry and some few of the Nobility observing the Precepts and Practices Lifes and Deaths of many of that Clergy to be Pious and Exemplary joyned with them of this or the like Perswasion Since which time it pleasing God to restore King Charles II. the Parliament thought it convenient to establish the same Discipline which our first Reformers judged prudential and that as the Dissenters do complain upon stricter Subscriptions than formerly not abating or laying aside any of those Ceremonies which have been matters of dispute and contention betwixt them and the Church of England ever since our blessed Reformation from Popery and Superstition Upon which account many of the Non-conforming Divines laid down their Livings and the old Controversies began afresh to be revived and so are like to be continued until we be either ruined by Popery or healed by Moderation which is the only Salve to cure the Churches Wounds and that admirable Remedy formerly proposed to the wisdom of Superiours by the Reverend Dr. Stillingfleet who having highly commended the prudence and temper of the French Churches in composing their publick Forms of Prayer that they were so far from inserting any thing controversial into them that Papists themselves would use them And saith he the same temper was used by our Reformers in the composing our Liturgy in reference to the Papists to whom they had an especial Eye as being the only Party then appearing whom they desired to draw into their Communion by coming as near them as they well and safely could And certainly those holy Men who did seek by any means to draw in others at such a distance from their Principles as the Papists were did never intend by what they did for that end to exclude any truly tender Consciences from their Communion That which they laid as a Bait for them was never intended by them as a Hook for those of their own Profession But the same or greater Reason which made them at that time yield so far to them then would now have perswaded them to alter and lay aside those things which yield matter of offence to any of the same Profession with themselves now For surely none will be so uncharitable toward those of his own Profession as not to think there is as much reason to yield in compliance with them as with the Papists And it cannot but be looked upon as a Token of God's severe displeasure against us if any though unreasonable Proposals of Peace between us and the Papists should meet with such entertainment among many and yet any fair offers of Vnion and Accomodation among our selves be so coldly embraced and entertained Thus far our Reverend and Learned Dean of Pauls delivered his Opinion as to these matters of Dispute near thirty Years a-gone before the Laws were established against Dissenters And in his Book Entituled The unreasonableness of Separation wrote twenty years after the former He hath given the World such a Testimony of his real Kindness to Dissenters notwithstanding his hard usuage from them and of his sincere and hearty desire to heal our unhappy Breaches and unite our unchristian Divisions as will for ever consecrate his Memory to posterity Upon these and some other like Considerations I should humbly propose to the Wisdom of this present Parliament some probable means