Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
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A50329
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The antithelemite, or, An answer to certain quaeres by the D. of B. and the considerations of an unknown author concerning toleration
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Maurice, Henry, 1648-1691.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing M1359; ESTC R3722
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42,710
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78
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to what purpose our Author brings into this consideration a passage of Scripture about Unity where he pleads for the Establishment of Division There is one Body one Spirit one Lord one Faith one Baptism Since several of the Dissenters have neither the same Faith nor Baptism much less the same Body or Spirit The Anabaptists look upon our Baptism as void The Quakers and Socinians for the most part use no Baptism at all Now I would fain understand by what figure of Speech these may be said to have the same Baptism with us Well admit there be some things of moment about which we differ yet the number of those is greatest about which we are agreed therefore there is much more reason to love one another for the many things wherein we agree than for to fall out for those wherein we differ Whether we ought to love one another for those things in which we agree is not the question for it is certain we ought to love one another whether we agree in many things or few but the point in dispute is whether this love obliges us to permit those that differ from us to Confirm themselves in those errors which are the occasion of our difference by having them Preach'd and Argu'd and Maintain'd in their Assemblies Is it an Act of Christian Charity to suffer Quakers to enjoy all opportunities of being confirm'd in their madness and of seducing silly people If we love the Person of a Socinian must we therefore give him leave to propagate his Doctrine and to teach men to deny their Lord that bought them because we have Charity for Anabaptists ought we therefore to Tolerate them to Re-baptize those they have seduc'd to believe themselves no Christians or the Independants because our Faith is not much different from theirs shall they out of pure love be licens'd to gather Select Congregations to draw away as many as they can from the Church to oblige them by a Vow as Solemn as that of Baptism not to return thither nor to forsake their new Fraternity These are the things which we would gladly have the Dissenters forbear and use all lawful means to hinder them not because we have no love for them but out of pure compassion because these things they are so desirous to be indulg'd in would do them and others hurt and this is all the quarrel we have with them this is the falling out with which our Author is offended What shall we say now to the Mahomitan Parable That variety of Flowers may grow on the same Bank It is certainly more agreeable to the Principles of him that spoke it than those of a Christian for the Turks permit Jews and Christians to live among them and to enjoy the Exercise of their Religion because they think both of them may be sav'd by vertue of that Religion they respectively profess But our Church passes a very severe Censure upon those that shall say that every man may be sav'd by that Law or Sect which he professes But what if these Flowers prove Weeds and grow too fast what if they annoy and hurt the rest what if they are like Flowers de Luce ill Neighbours according to the Old Proverb what then They must certainly in prudence be a little discouraged and kept under or by some good Art be brought to change their destructive and unsortable nature In what manner this Prophecy of the Reconciliation of Dissenting Natures The Wolf shall lye down with the Lamb and the Leopard with the Kid is to be accomplish'd I am not well assur'd however I have some reason to suspect that it is not to be done by the way of an universal Toleration because this description shews not only that they shall not hurt one the other but that they shall be of one Fellowship and Communion they shall feed and lye down together whereas Toleration seems to do no more than to shut up these several Creatures in distinct apartments of the same Grate but if you would know when a Presbyterian or Independant or Anabaptist will not hurt I can tell without the Spirit of Prophecy it is then only when they have no power to do hurt Cons 7. The French Protestants who are Dissenters from the Establish'd Government of that Kingdom are kindly receiv'd and succour'd by England and when the French King is highly blam'd by English Protestants and perhaps too by some English Catholicks for Persecuting his peaceable Subjects shall we do the same thing in our Kingdom which we condemn in another Therefore thou art inexcusable O Man that judgest for thou that judgest another doest the same thing I will not enquire what English Protestants do highly blame or condemn the Actions of the French King those of my acquaintance are not very forward to censure and condemn Princes nor can it be concluded that whosoever is kind to a Stranger forc'd out of his Countrey does presently engage himself in the whole Merit of his Cause But as for the French Protestants we conceive our compassion to be the more due to them because they suffer for a Religion which we verily believe to be true which we are not able to say of several of those that plead for Toleration In the next place they were peaceable and had not provok'd their Prince by any Seditious or Turbulent Behaviour in the Minority of this King when the discontents of France were very high and the Authority of the Government low They behav'd themselves so well as to deserve his publick acknowledgment which I believe our Dissenters are too modest to pretend to for if they should yet there is hardly any body so ignorant of their proceedings but can justly reproach them with having laid hold on every advantage of publick distress to weaken first then to destroy the Government They never fail'd to join themselves with every Faction against the Crown and still brought a form'd Faction to every discontented great Man and offer'd themselves ready instruments of his Ambition or Revenge But we have yet farther cause to Commiserate the sufferings of the French Protestants because they tell us and we have no reason to disbelieve them that they were inflicted without Process or Form of Law and directly against particular Rights and Priviledges granted to them by former Kings For their Churches had been long ago taken into the protection of the Government and establish'd by Laws Special Judicatures were erected in their favour where the one half were of their Religion and several other Priviledges granted them to secure their persons and estates from Oppression and the malice of their Enemies and how they have forfeited all I do not know But our Protestant Dissenters were never own'd by our Laws nor mentioned in them but as a factious and seditious â—arty that was by all due means to be suppress'd There never was any agreement or accomodation between the Government and them for while they could hold their arms in their hands they
and some other out of Speeches since his Restauration I will not take upon me too answer them but remit the Reader to those Reasons of the House of Commons which satisfyed the King himself so far as to pass the act of uniformity without any regard had to the Dissenters the Declaration for indulgence set forth some years after upon better Consideration was revok'd by the King but no Council or Parliament were ever able to convince him so fully of the Reason of putting the Laws in Execution against Dissenters as the Dissenters themselves who made at last such returns of insolence and sedition for all his indulgence that he was forc'd for the preservation of himself and his Government to call for the assistance of those Laws and to order them to be put in effectual Execution and we owe it wholy to his wisdom and fore-sight that some of the most considerable of them are now in being I mean that of the 35th of Queen Elizabeth which he saved by his Prerogative Law as well as men when it was condemn'd to be abolish'd And if his clemency had saved many who the Laws had justly condemned why should it not save a Law that had done him and his Ancestours no small service and was then doom'd to an undeerv'd Fate Consi 10. The Tenth and last Consideration consists of several Testimonies take some from Ancient Ecclesiastical Writers some from modern Authors he deals here in Gross and is not pleas'd to name his Author from whence he has taken them that the particulars might be examin'd It is not impossible perhaps to Guess but why should any man break in upon ones private reading and intrude in his fecret If our Author had known any other Church History or Collector it is ten to one but he had chosen better as for the first 800 years it is true there could not be many Civil Laws against Dissenters in Christian Religion yet if our Author had heard of the story of Paul of Samesata he might have known that the Civil Power was employ'd in defence of the Catholick Religion against Heresy even before Constantines time He names several Emperours with whom I perceive he is unacquainted for I am apt to beleive if he had known any thing of them he would have left at leastwise Constantius and Vatens out of his Catalogue of Toleratiours and put in Julian who out of pure love and kind ness to Christian Religion granted an universal Toleration to all Sects of dissenting Christians But their larger permission he says was especially towards Jews It may be so for these were indulg'd when several Christian Sects were not nay they have a Toleration in almost all Christian Kingdoms And even in Rome where there is small regard had of the Consciences of Protestant Dissenters and all this not because they prefer Jews to erring Christians but because they conceive the Toleration of them may not have so much danger at that of Christian Sects Yet of these Emperours whom he names Constantine prosecuted the Donatists and the Arnians and sent several Bishops that refus'd to subscribe the Nicene Creed into Banishment Theodosius the Great and his Sons Arcadius and Honorius did restrain many Christian Sects in the Exercise of their Conscience and succeeding Emperours were still more and more severe in requiring compliance with the Religion Establish'd in several Councils Ithacius and Idacius our Author observes were condem'd by the Gallican Bishops for being Authors of bringing the Priscillianists to Execution What Execution I pray Of Death they might be justly condemn'd for making themselves Prosecutors in Cases of Bloud but what is all this to our Laws or Prosecution of Dissenters St. Augustin was against Sanguinary Laws in Cases of Religion so are we several Fathers condemn the use of all force to bring a man to believe the Gospell so do we Religion must be voluntary and cannot be forc'd so say we and yet there may be discipline us'd to reduce the wilful perverse and they may be brought the better to see their mistake by the Inconvenenices it may expose them to The Sects of the Jews were rather in Phylosophy then Religion for there was no Schisme nor Breach between them in regard of the main Congregation which the Law requir'd for they went all into the same Temple to Worship The Joseptins would not suffer the Trachonites to be circumcised by force no more do we either Infidels or their Children to be baptiz'd by force Ethelbert would not compel the Pagan Saxons to be come Christians and Constantine and Licinius's edict allows all the Liberty of their Worship because at that time the Circumstances of Christianity and Heathenism did then require it to be so and yet Constantine afterward ward forbid the Heathen to sacrifice to their Idols and shut up their Temples Bodin had apostatiz'd to Judaisme or perhaps Atheism and it is no great matter what he says nor is it of any great Authority what Barc-lay says in a Romance and the Reflexions of Political Writers when they refine upon any Subject are not always wise in the practice as wise as they are in the Contemplation Sir E. Cook was never against the Execution of our Penal Laws against Dissenters and what Judge Jenkins says is only with respect to the time in which they were spoken when it seem'd Impossible to make any accomodation without a General Toleration but it pleas'd the providence of God to open another way which the wisest men were so far from foreseeing that they durst hardly hope it some years before The words of King Charles the Martyr had respect to the circumstances of this Kingdom when he wrote and as for the preamble of the Statute of Queen Mary it is but necessary that those who cannot be brought to love may be compell'd to fear their Prince extream punishments such as are there intended I believe we have none and the extreamest of ours were forced by the Sedition and not design'd against the Opinions of Dissenters and if those-just Laws that were made without any extream punishment had been duly executed there had in probability been no occasion for other more severe penalties so that if there be any addition of rigor the Dissenters must thank those that favour'd and conniv'd at them for it that incourag'd them to be insolent and enterprizing and forc'd the Government to take greater security of a Party that began to grow ungovernable As to the last ambiguous Citation it is sufficient to reply that the increase of Dissenters did always increase not only the differences between King and People and divided their interests but likewise divided the interest and affections of the People and therefore whatever way contribute most to the growth of a disaffected Party cannot be healing how moderate soever it may be and if the Dissenters thought they would not thrive better under a Toleration which I cannot see any reason why they should desire it And now having return'd