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A38437 Englands settlement mistaken, or, A short survey of a pamphlet called England's settlement upon the two solid foundations of the peoples civil and religious liberties, pleading for a toleration of all religions wherein his ten arguments for toleration are confuted as so many sophisms and fallacies / by a well-willer to both civil and religious liberties of the people. Well-willer to both civil and religious liberties of the people. 1660 (1660) Wing E3050; ESTC R26794 23,668 34

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ENGLANDS SETTLEMENT MISTAKEN OR A Short Survey of a Pamphlet CALLED ENGLAND'S SETTLEMENT Vpon the two solid Foundations of the Peoples Civil and Religious LIBERTIES PLEADING For a Toleration of all Religions Wherein His Ten ARGUMENTS for Toleration are Confuted as so many Sophisms and Fallacies By a Well-willer to both Civil and Religious Liberties of the People London Printed by D. Maxwell 1660. ENGLANDS SETTLEMENT MISTAKEN c. THe Author of Englands Settlement is by many wise men thought to be a disguised Jesuite or a Jesuited Sectary ' The voice is Jacobs voice but the hands are the hands of Esau He personates in his words a Protestant putting himself amongst us as one of us but his Design is under a pretence of an Vniversal Toleration of all Religions as to asperse our both Church and State with the ugly crime of Persecution so especially to plead for Liberty of Conscience to Papists and Recusants as shall be made appear in ventilation of the Tract it self He hath scraped together out of several Sectarian Books or Pamphlets Anabaptists Levellers Fifth Monarchy men c. no less then ten Arguments which as they are very plausible like a fair picture upon course cloath afar off to simple and weak apprehensions so being looked on nearer hand and touched by the hand of a solid understanding are like the Apples of Sodom which touched turn to ashes and prove but so many thred-bare Sophisms or transparent Fallacies often confuted His method of proceeding that they that have not his Tract may see what he hath said and judg the better of it is this 1. He seemes out of pity and compassion to the Nation whiles he is secretly piling up his barrels of Gunpowder once more under the Parliament House to blow it up by procuring an Act of Toleration for all Religions to exemplifie and bewaile out past and present miseries as the Amazement of the world and the intolerable burden of the nation for so he sayes They experience that their so much talk'd of and so often promised liberty has proved nothing but real and almost intolerable Slavery their plenty has been turned into miserable poverty and their peace into endless troubles How truly let others judg 2. He tells us what indeed we find There has been a curse upon the Government these ten years it hath been all that time a rolling like Sysiphus stone and inconstant like the Moon The judgments of God have been very terrible and universal both over Church and State and have gone round over all sorts of Persons as well of high as low degree For the late English Church hath been quite overturned the King himself the Head thereof tragically beheaded and his posterity rigorously excluded The Nobillity is in a manner degraded the house of Peeres abolished the Ancient Gentry slighted the Marchants and Commons by decay of trade and by the unhappy conjunction of extraordinary Taxes impoverished Yea the Parliaments themselves have not gone without some chastisement For their own hired servants have oftener than once lifted their heels against them and without any lawful Authority but according to their own pleasures or interests have dissolved called annihilated and revived them Only the Souldiers whom God hath used as Instruments to punish others may seem to have gone hitherto unpunished How true this is also let others judg 3 He seems to take upon him to be a prophet and to foretel what is like to come upon those the Army that have not yet smarted for so he says Every thing must have its time to come to maturity and God Almighty has begun already to manifest his judgments upon some of their principal Heads and first Movers O. P. his posterity and others of his chief Officers c. which may serve for a warning for all the rest to prevent Gods Judgments ●est they sall heavily upon them here or hereafter They may do well to consider it and lay it to heart 4. Having done this he inquires into the causes of these judgments and divine visitations and our so long unsettlement and resolves well in general Some very heinous sin or sins have provoked them but what these sins are in particular is not so easie to determine to every mans satisfaction Yet he goes on in the search of them and first gives us his own judgment upon the case it may probably be affirmed if not averred as a certain truth that Soul-tyranny or coercive power over mens consciences is the principal sin that hath drawn down these judgments from heaven for some reasons For first it is an heinous sin in it self as he will shew shortly and especially if it be exercised against the true Religion Before we hear the rest consider this First he should have said Soul Tyranny is an heinous sin not especially but only when it is exercised against the true Religion Coercive power exercised against false Religion is no Tyranny no sin at all but an Act of Justice or Religion Secondly he forgot himself in this Assertion and did not remember that in Rome it self Italy and Spaine c. where that Soul Tyranny is most rigorously exercised setting up a false Religion and persecuting the true in their High commission and Inquisition Courts there is as yet the greatest peace and prosperity and flourishing of those Nations their sins being not yet mature for their long ago determined judgments However it seems those Politician are not of this mans Cabinet Council that Toleration of all Religions is one of the Pillars of a States Settlement Its experimented too much and too long through many ages that no hatreds and so no differences are like those of different Religions and which is observable the nearer they come unto an union in matters of Religion if yet there be some difference the more strong and deadly are their hatreds the more fierce and violent their Animosities The Jew and the Samaritan were The Protestants and Papists The Lutheran Arminians and Calvinists c. are at this day the most deadly enemies The reason is well given by one not meanly learned They both plead for their God and that man hath no Religion that can put up an Indignity offered to his God See that story Act. 19.23 c. But Thirdly he forgot himself once more and did not consider that all those miseries or most of them have fallen upon this Nation since the desired Liberty of conscience was gratified with a Toleration or Connivence at least And whither they will ever end till Religion be established in truth purity and power is a probleme not yet determined but may be ere we have done A second Reason why Soul tyranny is so heinous a sin and cause of our miseries he gives to be this that This Nation hath been deeply gurley of it above these hundred years He means forsooth in prosecuting Papists not for their Religion but their Rebellion and rebellious principles What is this but to call our Church and State Persecutors