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A90474
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An antidote against the contagious air of independency. Shewing I. Six sufficient grounds, why they ought to revoke their schismaticall principles. II. Six paralells betwixt theirs and the Iesuiticall practices. / By D.P.P. Feb. 13. 1644. Imprimatur Ja: Cranford.
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D. P. P.
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1645
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Wing P15; Thomason E270_3; ESTC R202030
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11,261
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26
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that Agrippina was made away by her impious son they both give themselves over to commit before the sun all manner impiety which they committed before secretly for feare to displease or grieve their mothers It is therefore the Lawes and the respect of Magistrates that curbeth the pernitious inclination of men But if this new way should take place what Impiety would not be committed or what Heresies would not be invented to please the palat of their Auditors for to increase the number of their congregations and the revenew of their contributions or out of ambition to be reputed more precise and singular then their brethren or neighbor (q) Iud. 17.5 Pastors upoÌ„ which would insue unheard of divisions contentions and confusions as it fell out in the time of Micah when there was no King in Israel As long as Iehojada lived Joash King of Judah feared the Lord but as soon as he was dead he gave himself over to Idolatry and Impiety for he caused Zacharias (r) 2 Chr. 24.20 the Son of Iehoiada that had raised him to the Crown most cruelly and ingratefully to be stoned to death because he admonished him to returne unto the Lord. And shall we hope better of men of lower degree that are risen from nothing to ride on (Å¿) Ecclâ—s 1â— 7 Horse-back when their Master walkes a foot have we forgotten rhe Proverb Set a begger on horseback and he will c. No surely but rather worse for there never was two such insulting Prelates in the Christian world as Card Woolsey and William Laud Arch Bishop of Canterbury and yet the first was but a Butchers Son and the second a poore Cloathworkers Son the first durst presume to name himselfe before his King and the second to controul his Prince reforme the Royall Oath and insult over the supream Court of this Kingdom Even so if this new way should take place we should have many thousand petty Tyrants domineering over their Congregations as the last Arch-bishop did in the Star-chamber and the High Commission Court and as many Religions as Pastors for every one of them would frame a Religion after their owne Idea But the Presbyterian Discipline is a medium way between Hierarchy and a Democraticall Government much like to the Civill Government of the Venetians that hath continued this twelve hundred yeare and so may this continue to the last day because it is free from all extreames which in all Discipline are dangerous But the Kingdome being divided into twelve Classis and every Classis having six Reverend Divines appointed to call twice a yeare all the Pastors that shall be under their Iurisdiction before them and to examine and determine of all Cases as well for Doctrine Discipline and misdemeanour in life and conversation And these twelve Classis to be called once a yeare to a Nationall Synod for to judge of the Appeals and of the greater affaires of the Church This medium way I say is able to suppresse all Schismes and Divisions and to keepe the Clergy in that purity of Doctrine and Discipline as is beseeming the true Ministers of God These Reasons then should in my opinion induce the Independants to re-unite themselves with the Church of God to abhorre all separation and to disdaine to shelter any longer the Sectaries that live in and about this City but rather to endeavour to convince them of their errours by the sword of the Spirit But if they will desperately remaine obstinate then to lend their helping hand to their Brethren of the Ministery to remove them from hence that they may not draw any longer the Iudgements of God upon this Nation as they have done for conniving at them which kind of halting between two opinions is most odious to God for it is impossible to serve God and Mammon And in so doing they will vindicate themselves of these six imputations following which are daily cast upon them which otherwise will confirme this opinion in the common people that there is seldome any smoake without fire I. THat they are as like the Roman Jesuits in their Principles Method Insinuations 6. Paralells Equivocations and Fallacies as two Paralell-lines are like one another II. As the Jesuits will not charge themselves with any parish cures but desire rather to instruct Schollers in the liberall Arts preach Funerall Sermons all the Lent long even so our Independents shun all parish cures and endeavour to obtain as many Legative Lectures as they can for to avoid the extraordinary pains that parish cures require and in lieu of Schollers they gather to themselves as many Disciples as they can and of them they frame privat congregations of which they require a Covenant for to contribute to the necessities of their Pastors and an oath or promise to follow him wheresoever he is inforced to flee whether it be in Holland or in America and so by these Lectures that are the most certain rents to men and punctually paid of any and the contributions of their private congregations their yeerly revenew doth excell the yeerly coming in of the best parish Cures III. The Jesuits intice all the ingenious spirits of a County to their Schools and allure thither the eldest sons of the richest Families living about them whereby they insinuate themselves in the affections of their Parents which leave them great Legacies at their decease so that in few yeers they get the greatest part of the free-free-land seated neer unto their Colledges and if the Magistrates in Romayne and in the state of the Venetians had not by an Edict prevented their wiles they had in a short time incroached the greater part of their demains But they have now made an Edict That if any leave any land by his last Will to the Jesuits they are upon pain of forfeiture to sel the same within the yeer to Lay-men that they may no more incroach upon their Territories But the Jesuits finding means notwithstanding this Edict by supposed names to hold these Legacies The state of Venice for this and another of their Wiles viz. About the Oriculary confession have been constrained to banish them out of their State for as long as they remained in Venice the most secret Councels and Resolutions of the Senate was revealed to the Pope and the King of Spain by the insinuations used in the Oriculary-confession of the Venetian Ladies Even so the Independants intice and allure to their side the most accute spirits and insinuate themselves cunningly with the richest and most eminent persons where they live and allure the best and richest families to their private congregations whereby they increase their Revenew and obtain the best Legative Lectures about the City and had they the use of the Oriculary confession as well as the Jesuits that they might use their insinuative faculty to dying men and women they would undoubtedly excell the Jesuits in riches and demaines IV. WHeresoever the Jesuits set footing they drive away or impoverish all the
AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST The Contagious Air of Independency SHEWING I. Six sufficient Grounds why they ought to revoke their Schismaticall Principles II. Six Paralells betwixt theirs and the Iesuiticall practices By D. P. P. 1 COR. 1.12 13. For this I say that every one of you saith I am of Paul And I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ Is Christ divided Was Paul crucified for you Or were yee baptized in the Name of Paul c. Feb. 18. 1644. Imprimatur JA CRANFORD London Printed by John Field for Ralph Smith at the sign of the Bible in Cornhill neer the Royall Exchange 1644. An Antidote against the Contagious Air of INDEPENDENCY 1 Cor. 1.12 13. For this I say that every one of you saith I am of Paul And I of Apollo And I of Cephas And I of Christ Is Christ divided Was Paul crucified for you Or were you baptized in the name of Paul c. IT was not without cause that Solomon the wisest King that ever breathed upon earth cryed out in the beginning of the book of his Recantation (a) Eccles 1.2 Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher Vanity of vanities all is vanity c. For surely if any that have seen the former happinesse of this Kingdom should behold the miseries of it at this present they might with Solomon bewail the vicietude of all temporall things if they took into consideration the sudden change that is befallen to this Kingdom in so short a time for it is fallen from the highest flood of prosperity to the lowest ebbe of desolation and not by the incursions of foraign Nations but by its own children that have like yong Vipers ripp'd up the womb of their Mother to imbrue their hands in their own blood with lesse remorse and humanity then barbarous heathen for (b) Tacitus lib. 2. chap. 8 Tacitus records that one Brother having slain his Brother unawares in the Battell of Bedriac that was fought between the Commanders of the Emperor Otho and the Commanders of the Emperor Vitellius killed himself upon his Brothers body for grief that he had been so unfortunate as to slay him that he was bound by nature to love dearly And Guichardin records That Robert Earl de la Marke loved so dearly his two sons the Barons of Floranges and Jamets that having broken through the Battell of (c) See Guichardin History in the Battell of Novare Novare and made a worthy retreat with his own Regiment in despight of the victorious Enemy hearing when he was past all danger that his two sons lay among the dead in the midst of the field returned and in despite of all opposition recovered their bodies and brought them away upon his horse and by this extraordinary valour saved both their lives notwithstanding they were then speechlesse and mortally wounded But alas we are so desperately wicked and void of all humanity and naturall affection in this Intestine War of ours that divers Gentlemen of both parties have looked upon their nearest Kinsmen that were wallowing in their own blood in the Battell of Keynton without offering them their ayd nor casting a sigh of compassion for them Nay some have been so cruell and deprived of all naturall affection that they and their Abettors have ridden twenty miles in a dark night to surprise their Father Uncle or Brother for to carry them away to their own Garrison to wring out of their hands some considerable Ransom which being refused they have like (d) Iob 1.17 Caldeans deprived them in another night of all their cattell and means and reduced them that were Knights fellows into Jobs case without any compassiō or reluctation It s no wonder therfore if our miseries do rather increase then draw neer to a period since our cruelties inhumanities and oppressions are not to be paraleld in any History But that which doth most of all increase the wrath of God against us is that some of our Clergy-men that should like (e) Exo. 32.10 11 12. Moses stand in the gap to appease the Lords anger are they that inflame the same by the contentions and Schisms they foment in the Church of God about the establishing of a new way of Church-Government which they have brought from Holland or America where they were constrained to flye by the over-rigorous courses of the Prelacy having been infected with this contagious air by sojourning in those parts among Sectaries so that thinking by flight to avoid a Rock they have cast themselves upon a quick-sand that may if God in his mercy prevent it not conduce their Souls to greater danger then their Bodies were during the persecution of the Archbishop Land It is therefore necessary that Christians should be very circumspect where they flie because the contagious Air of a perverse generation is apt to be infused insensibly into their hearts for the sojourning of righteous Lot among the Sodomites did in some sort taint his noble disposition otherwise he had not proffered his two daughters to the desperate lust of the Sodomites to preserve the two Angels from (f) Gen. 19.8 violence that the Rites of Hospitality might not be wronged And the aboad of his two daughters amongst that impious Generation taught them to drown the (g) Gen. 19.32 continency of their Father in the Wine of Drunkennesse that hee might not abhor their incestuous imbracements which he had undoubtedly detested if the light of his reason had not been over-clouded with the vapours of the Vine And the (h) Gen. 42.15 16 long aboad of the most continent of men chaste Joseph amongst the Egyptians bred in him that vicious habit to swear by the lift of Pharaoh c. Even so they having been infected with this contagious Air of Independency oppose as much as in them lyeth the Presbyteriall-Government notwithstanding it is approved of by the Word of God the practice of the Apostles and of all the Primitive Churches And endeavour to bring in this new revealed way that hath no president but the practice of some private Congregations of Separatists that are in Holland and America which is as good as nothing at all as it shall appear in the Reasons following Now because I conceive these Schisms and Spirituall Divisions do as much or rather more retard the true Reformation in hand then our Civil Divisions I conceive my self obliged by the rule of Christian Charity to exhort in the name of God and for CHRIST JESUS sake all such Independents that have rent in pieces the Mysticall body of our Saviour by gathering to themselves private Congregations and by a kinde of Mercenary way robbed divers of their brethren of the Ministery of some of the fattest sheep of their flocks to give over this destructive way for did they know the irrepairable breaches they make by it in the Church of God I am perswaded they would suddenly forsake the same for the advancement of Gods glory and their own safety which ought to