Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A30625
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A treatise of church-government occasion'd by some letters lately printed concerning the same subject / by Robert Burscough ...
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Burscough, Robert, 1651-1709.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing B6137; ESTC R2297
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142,067
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330
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Imprimatur Z. Isham R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. Ã Sacris Feb. 4. 1691 2. A TREATISE OF Church-Government Occasion'd by some LETTERS Lately Printed concerning the same SUBJECT BY ROBERT BURSCOUGH M. A. LONDON Printed for Samuel Smith at the Prince's Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1692. THE PREFACE TO THE READER AN Observing Italian has given us an Account of a Transaction which is not so well known amongst us as many others of the like Nature He acquaints us that in an Assembly of Catholicks as he calls them which were brought together by the Late Earl of Bristol a Consultation was held concerning the fittest Means of propagating their Religion in this Kingdom and they agreed that one of the most proper Methods they could make use of for that purpose was to testifie a mighty Zeal and to make a great shew of Friendship for the Non-conformists Whereupon he tells us They represented them as Men of Trade whose Sufferings would be prejudicial to the Nation They pretended to commiserate their Condition and declaim'd perpetually against Persecution And there were two things he says which they propos'd to themselves in this Conduct The first was to maintain the Sectaries against the Church of England hoping they might sooner destroy it by Intestine Divisions and so more easily open a Gate to Popery The second was Under a pretence of tolerating these Sectaries to stop the Execution of the Laws about Religion that their Priests might meet with less opposition in advancing the Religion of the Church of Rome In pursuance of this Design as my Author also informs us They prevail'd with King Charles the Second to issue out his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience which was recall'd by the interposition of the Parliament But the Project which was then so happily blafted by the Parliament reviv'd to amazement in the following Reign and the Nation had the pain to see a Jesuite made a Privy Counsellor and Prime Minister of State and the Protestant Dissenters very deep in his Interests and warm under his Influence To see these Dissenters so liberally offering up their Incense to the Court which was then labouring to inslave us to the Pope and the Court answering their Devotion with many Favors For so it was as every Body knows And when this Alliance was confirm'd between them hardly a Week pass'd over our heads which did not bring us fresh Intelligence of their mutual Endearments What I have said of the Dissenters must not be understood of the whole Body of them without exception For to do them Right some of them were afflicted at the shameful Confederacy in which their Brethren were engaged But neither in Number nor in Zeal and Diligence did they equal those that beheld our Church in distress with such Eyes as the Children of Edom look'd on Jerusalem in the day of her Adversity when they cry'd to the Babylonians Rase it rase it to the foundation But it pleas'd God to disappoint their Devices so that their hands could not perform their Enterprise And one might then have thought that the Reflection on their Actions should have been such a Mortification to them as would have dispos'd them to an Accommodation and Union with those from whom they had made an Unreasonable Separation and who were so willing to forget their former Miscarriages and to receive them with all imaginable Tenderness But they on the contrary have since appear'd more averse from the Way of Peace than ever And it is Observable that the Kindness of the Papists put them into a strange fit of Complaisance and was the Cause that either they employ'd their Pens in the service of the Church of Rome or not against it But the Obligations which they have receiv'd from the Conformists instead of abating have inflam'd their Rage and given them Encouragement to write abundance of Books such as they are against the Church of England And this may shew how dissatisfied they remain in their present Circumstances and that as long as we live with them and not under them we are like to hear of their Complaints When my Adversary who is of their number and gave occasion to this Discourse saw Their Politicks and his Own defeated I had hopes that he would leave me to the Retirement I affected and give me no farther trouble with his Disputes about Church-Government I was in expectation that he would either study to be quiet or that I should meet with him amongst some late Apologists But when I least suspected it he appears in Print on the Offensive side and rudely attacking a whole Community he would persuade his Readers that a Separate National Jurisdiction such as he supposes that of our Ecclesiastical Rulers to be cannot but weaken the Jurisdiction of Kings and other States and is neither more nor less but the very same thing that heretofore was found so burdensom under the Papacy and that made the best and wisest and greatest of our Kings so uneasie So that he lays it down he says as a Maxim that nothing can be of greater danger to any Government than a National Hierarchy that does not depend upon it or is not in the Measures and Interests of it Fresh Experience has learn'd us this In which words his design is to cast an Odium on the Conforming Clergy and to suggest that they have been hurtful unto Kings and usurpt a Jurisdiction that is inconsistent with the Safety and the Rights of Sovereignty But if this cannot be prov'd against them either from the Nature of their Jurisdiction it self or from their National Union or Matter of Fact on which he grounds the Charge he must be content to bear the Infamy of a false Accuser By the Jurisdiction of the Clergy which is first to be consider'd either he understands that which is Spiritual and such as the Pastors of the Church receiv'd from Christ and to say that this hath no Limits and is pernicious to the State is not only to injure the Truth but to cast a Reproach upon our Lord himself Or else he means their Temporal Authority with which they have been legally vested by Sovereign Princes and then he knows that he hath falsly call'd it Independent Unboundable and Uncontrollable he knows it is false that this is neither more nor less but the very same Supreme and Absolute Power which the Popes claim'd and usurpt and by which they made our Kings so Uneasie And I leave him to answer the Convictions of his own Conscience for the wrong he hath done the Reformation by so odious a Reflexion Another thing on which he grounds his Censure of the Clergy is their National Union and he argues that This together with the Independence which he ascribes to them must needs render them very dangerous as putting them into a condition of being made a powerful Faction and easie to be practis'd upon and inabling the Heads of the Faction to convey Malignity to all their Subordinates and
Then so very dangerous when with so much Courage they threw themselvs in the Breach that was made by the Dispensing Power and were asserting and labouring to preserve our Laws and Liberties which others were offering up in Sacrifice They were then conveying their Malignity to the People when in their Books and Sermons they defended the Cause of the Reformation with so much Success that Popery lay Gasping before them in great Agonies notwithstanding the Cordials that were administred to it by other hands And Then indeed the King was uneasie because his Endeavours to establish his Religion did not make the Impressions he desir'd And the Jesuits and their Associats were uneasie because their Measures were broken and their expectation of extirpating the Northern Heresie defeated And such of the Dissenters as had been assisting and pushing them on in works of darkness were uneasie at the Reproach they had brought upon themselves by their ill Conduct But in the rest of the Nation there appear'd a general satisfaction to see Truth prevailing by lawful Methods against the Errors of the Church of Rome when they were cover'd with a powerful Protection One may wonder what it is that induced our Author to lead our thoughts to the Transactions of those Times since it would be more for his Reputation could he bury them in Oblivion or cover them with a Veil of Darkness But it seems he cannot dissemble how much he was affected with the Management of Affairs when himself was in the Interests and Measures of the Government and when in a Pamphlet Intitled Prudential Reasons for repealing the Penal Laws against all Recusants c. Penn'd by a Protestant Person of Quality he declar'd to the World that King James the Second had a clearer prospect of his own and the Kingdoms Interest than any of his Royal Predecessors ever had and pursu'd it with that Conduct and Vigour which did correspond with the Miracles that preserv'd the Crown for him and him for the Crown and for a Glory greater than that of wearing Crowns to wit to be the Restorer of Religion to Liberty and Freedom of Exercise And with such exquisite and servile Flattery was that Unfortunate Prince encouraged in the Large Steps he made to his Ruine That I have imputed to my Adversary the Harangue which I have quoted from the Prudential Reasons you will not think strange when I have told you that sometime since I received several Controversial Letters written by the hand of a Non-Conformist Preacher who subscrib'd them in his own Name and profess'd and persuaded his Easie Followers that they were his own But he could not deny when the Charge was lay'd before him that they were compos'd by the Protestant Person of Quality as he is pleas'd to call himself who hath lately publish'd some part of them to which this Treatise contains an Answer But how his Amanuensis resents this usage or contented he is to be stript of his borrowed Plumes and left naked to the Pity or Derision of Spectators as they are variously affected I pretend not to discover Some may think he hath had very hard measure and that he had much better never have enjoy'd the Glory of his Masters labours than be depriv'd of it in such a manner but that I leave to be adjusted between themselves And I had not said thus much of their Combination but out of great Compassion to a deluded People that I may let them see if they do not wilfully shut their eyes on what it is they grounded their insolent boasting by what Impostures they have been abus'd and by what Arts they have been engaged and encourag'd in their Schism Here it may be fit to take notice that since our Author appear'd in open light his Style differs much from what it was before For many Pages of his Manuscript Papers which I have by me are fill'd with bitter Invectives against me and other Conformists but it is in some measure true what he now says that his Printed Letters are refin'd from Personal Reflexions He thought it seems that Scurrility was suitable enough to the part he acted when he sustain'd the person of another and was asham'd of it when he laid aside his disguise Yet since he shews no Repentance for his former Provocations nor forbears to strike at the whole Body of the Conforming Clergy some may object that I have handled him with an excess of Tenderness But I wish no greater defects may be found in this Discourse than that I have err'd on the side of Lenity and I shall not be much concern'd at this Exception Nevertheless my Adversary may be assur'd that such a Conduct as his must needs have awaken'd the observation of many and I cannot promise that others will spare him as I have done or that he may not receive such Correction from a severer Hand as he is not Stoick enough to bear For my part I could have been content if he had refin'd away none of his Personal Reflexions I was willing enough that the World should have seen with what an impotent Fury I have been assaulted by him and I should have been glad to have been eas'd of the Fatigue of writing and giving a new Turn to the Answers I had sent him But for his own sake I congratulate to him any Tendency towards a Calmness of Thought and still retain for him the Regard that is due to an Intelligent Person of a sharp Wit great Reading and indefatigable Industry I could say more to his advantage but that I am afraid to indulge an Humour in him that is too predominant and what that is you may perceive from the Admonition he gave me in his Letter of Feb. 9. That he and I are never like to answer one anothers expectation so long as he looks for strength and closeness in my Discourses or I think to find weakness or loosness in his Which shews that he is a Man of a peculiar Temper and distinguish'd by such an Air of Assurance as is not common Not but that another might have treated me with as much Contempt but he was the Man of the World that thought nothing could come from him that is weak or loose Finding him in this condition I thought it not unfit to give him such Touches as might make him sensible that he is a Mortal Wight and of Humane Race and having convinc'd him by the method I propos'd that he was not Infallible he now confesses some of his mistakes Yet there are some Remains of his former distemper still hanging on him For says he to his Noble Friends I present you in these following Letters the true Idea as I take it of Church-Government which could it be receiv'd by all others with the same degree of Candor I assure my self it shall by you would be of Infinite Advantage to end these fatal Controversies that for many Ages have perplexed and in this last almost destroyed the Church I have not the honour