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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A50329 The antithelemite, or, An answer to certain quaeres by the D. of B. and the considerations of an unknown author concerning toleration Maurice, Henry, 1648-1691. 1685 (1685) Wing M1359; ESTC R3722 42,710 78

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turn of being uppermost and then will be in a capacity of revenging themselves If you tolerate and give way to Dissenters you contribute to their Growth and with your own hands help the Wheel to turn round and when they are got to the Top they may forget all your former connivances There is no end of pursuing the consequences of things that have such variety of chance and are influenced by every little incident the wisest way surely is for a man to be uniform to himself to do his duty and leave the success to God I cannot tell how seasonable it may be put people in mind at this time of Queen Marys daies Those that can aquiesce in the faith and justice of a King who has been alwaies so faithful a Subject to his own word can no more apprehend the hot doings of those times would return than that the time it self so long pass'd should be recall'd But there are Consciences as full of fears and jealousies of persecution for as they are of scruples in their Religion and condemn themselves never to be satisfy'd This is not very strange for it is natural for every man to hope and fear according as he has deserved I wonder our Author should give himself the trouble to go so far back as Queen Marys Reign to humble the Church Protestants with a prospect of their sufferings he might have found a Revolution no less calamitous to them and of a more fresh and smarting Remembrance I mean the Reign of the Dissenters The Church Protestants are sensible enough that they are mortal and have had their turns of suffering as well as others But it is somewhat an odd way of moving for Indulgence to commemorate the insolence or cruelty which those that pretend to favour have heretofore us'd towards the Church that is establish'd by Law and it sounds like a threat to suggest you know what you have suffered therefore take heed how you prosecute others Who are these others Dissenters Why should the intimation of Queen Marys days make us take such heed of that If those times should return it is not likely that the Prosecution of Dissenters would be laid to our charge as Heresy or Roman Catholicks The Dissenters of all men living have the least reason to reproach us with prosecuting these since they were the constant Instigators of the Magistrate to execute the Laws made against the Papists and upon all occasions exposed the Church-Protestants as Popishly affected because they did not always prosecute that Party with the uttermost rigour But if our danger cannot prevail with us to take heed of prosecuting yet surely our Saviours admonition must With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again If the measure be just and reasonable why should we fear that the same should be returned If the return be not just then it is not the same measure The Judges had need to understand this place better than our Considerer otherwise they would have but a sorry defence to make if the Criminals they had punish'd should come to make reprizals and to judge them by this Text according to the intent of this Consideration Consi 6. Conformists and Non-Conformists do all agree in the substance of Christianity in the same Articles of Faith in the same Rule of Manners in the Apostles Creed and the ten Commandments There is one Body one Spirit one Lord one Flesh one Baptisme As a variety of flowers may grow on one Bank so may Protestants and Papists live in England c. There is much more reason to love one another for the many things wherein we agree than to fall out for those wherein we differ and though we cannot have Communion in the same external Worship we can and have Commuuion in the same internal Adoration of the same Blessed Trinity c. The Wolf shall lye down with the Lamb c. It is an intolerable iniquity to use different and deceitful weights one sort to buy and another to sell by It is the same sort of cheat to represent things of more or less moment not as they are in themselves but only according to the occasion we have to make use of them When Dissenters speak of Toleration then we agree all in the main the differences are only about small matters and why should not we indulge something to lesser mistakes But if you desire them to take this Argument back by the same weight and tell them that since we agree in the main why should they be so unreasonable as to separate from us and to make or continue a perpetual breach for things of little moment then they presently change their note and every difference is of the highest importance i. e. Whatsoever they would have us to grant is but a slight matter But for them to yield any of those little things is as much as to renounce the Faith or to Sacrifice to an Idol Now let us observe the truth and consequence of what is offer'd in this Consideration all do agree as to the substance of Christianity and in the same Articles In what substance In what Articles In all This is too much for we have some difference I think with the Roman Catholicks about the infallibility of their Church the Supremacy of the Pope the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and these they take to be Articles of Faith and of the substance of Religion and we judge to be mistakes very absurd and of long and dangerous consequences But we have the same Apostles Creed So we have the same Scripture yet if they lay yet broader Foundations and build upon it what Faith they please how shall these their Creed or Scripture ever determine any difference about those Additional Articles or what Plea is it for Indulgence that we agree in many points but that we differ in other of great importance as if an Argument concerning the obligation of nine of the Commandments should be a reason to permit the observation of the tenth to discretion and that we should rather consider the many Commandments about which we agreed than one or two perhaps short ones which some tender Consciences might desire to be indulg'd The Socinians and we differ about the Person of Christ and the Merit of his death about the Doctrine of the Trinity and many things more of less moment but these things surely were ever accounted of the substance of Christianity and yet they make a difference between us and the Socinians The Quakers who resolve all their Faith into the Authority of their Spirit and revile the Scripture and deny it to be the Word of God do not agree with us so much as in the Foundation of Religion these two err dangerously concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God and I am afraid our Author did not consider these Sects when he tells us That we can and have Communion in the same Internal Adoration of the same Blessed Trinity I cannot tell