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act_n	apostle_n	church_n	power_n	3,814	5	5.5015	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34212	A missive to His Majesty of Great Britain, King James written divers yeers since by Doctor Carier ; conteining [sic] the motives of his conversion to Catholike religion ; vvith a notable fore-sight of the present distempers both in the church and state of His Majesties dominions, and his advice for the prevention thereof.	Carier, Benjamin, 1566-1614.; Strange, N., 17th cent.; James I, King of England, 1566-1625.	1649 (1649)	Wing C572; ESTC R8830	50,068	94

for our constancy to the profession of our forefathers from which had we stincht but the breadth of a naile and taken upon us some new denomination we had been as hard to be found out as other Sectaries and as free from penalties as they which forefathers of ours living before Luthers dayes in communion with the Catholikes of France Spaine Italic and all the Christian world as we do now did deliver faithfully it stood upon their salvation so to do unto their children those of the rest of the Christian World did the like unto their children that Depositum of Christianity which they had received from their predecessors and they from theirs by a continued successive line of Tradition from the Apostles and Christ no reforming enemy being able to shew when the Catholike Faith now professed by us and persecuted in us began in the world nor when the successive Tradition we and all Catholikes pretend unto was intercepted an infallible argument of our persecuted Religions being from the Apostles Christ More then sufficient cause I say for all to return to the Catholike Church setled by Christ the divine Architect upon a rock never to be prevailed against by humane or Devills powers never subject to fall from her self in points of faith nor consequently to be reformed in them from which Church your first Reformers fell Ex nobis exeuntes one of the marks by which we are to discern Hereticks as the Apostles teach us in their Acts chap. 15. ver 24. going out from among us to gain sensuall liberty to themselves to be revenged on their superiors or for private by-ends troubling the world with words subverting mens soules without commission or mandate from any superior for their facts or pretended Reformations And finally cause enough for the world to reflect how ill advised they were in times past and what an ill president they shewed posterity in their former greedy acceptance of new reforming spirits so prejudiciall to saving truth to orderly government in Church and State and to particular mens properties And withall to take warning for the future not to remit the work of Reformation even in things subject thereunto as Ceremonies humane practices manners and the like to every giddy pretending spirit if you do so you shall certainly have more holes made then mended but to such as are lawfully ordered and commissioned for it by the visible Church the pillar and ground of truth that all things be done according to her prescript honestè secundum ordinem 1 Cor. 14. 40. But fearing lest I should make this Prefatory Discourse like the gates of the City Myndus or like a great portall to a little house I 'le first present you with the names of some late Converts and then deteine you no longer from my promised re-impression of Doctor Cariers learned Letter to King James which is here rendred verbatim according to the Originall excepting onely the addition of some few marginall Notes I desire you to read it with attention reflecting from those to these times and not permit your mind to bee so prejudicate as to give censure before you have well pondered the matter the scope of which mutato tempore is the same with this which comes from one who unfeignedly would have all men saved and come to the knowledge of and imbrace the truth N. STRANGE From Paris 1. Novemb. 1648. stylo novo PSAL. 2. Et nunc Reges intelligite erudimini qui judicatis terram Attendite disciplinam nè pereatis The names of some who have lately been Ministers or Vniversity men in England and Scotland and are now converted to the Catholike Faith Tho. Vane Doctor of Divinity of Christs Colledge Cambridge lately Chaplain Extraordinary to His Majesty and Parson of Crayford in Kent Hugh Paulin de Cressy of Cambridge lately Prebend of Windsore in England and Deane of Laghlin in Ireland now entred into the Religious Order of S. Benedict at Doway Hen. Ireson of All-Soules Oxford Doctor of the Civill Law N. Read of New Colledge Oxford Doctor of the Civill Law Mr. Rich. Nicholls Bachelor of Divinity of Peter-house Cambridge Mr. Rich. Crashaw Master of Arts of Peter-house Cambridge now Secretary to a Cardinall in Rome well known in England for his excellent and ingenious Poems Mr. William Rowlands Minister of S. Margarets Westminster Master of Arts of Exeter Colledge Oxford Mr. Tho. Normington Master of Arts of Pembroke Hall Cambridge now in Italy a very able man in divers Sciences Mr. Joyner Bachelor of Arts and Fellow of S. Mary Magdelens Colledge Oxford Mr. Blakiston Bachelor of Arts of Cambridge who died last yeare in the English Colledge at Rome Mr. Edward Barker of Caius Colledge Cambridge Bachelor of Arts. Mr. Eaton of Cambridge now Priest in the English Colledge at Rome Mr. Peter Glu Minister of Ballioll Colledge in Oxford now Priest Mr. Jackson Minister Mr. Cooper Minister Mr. Daniel Minister now entred into a Religious Order Of Scots Mr. John Chrighton a famous man in his Country late Preacher of Parson in Scotland afterwards eminent in Languedos and lastly Chaplain to the Marquesse of Ormond Mr. Andrew Youngston late Regent of Aberdein now in a Colledge in Spain Mr. William Simple late Regent in Glascow now also in Spain Mr. Hugh Rosse late Regent in Aberdein now also in Spain Mr. Tho. Johnston c. Besides these there are divers both learned and unlearned lately entred into Communion with the Church of Rome whose names you may more easily learne then I discreetly publish Nor do I doubt but one more commerced with England Scotland and Ireland with other parts of France and with the promises of the low Countries might easily furnish you with a larger Catalogue of Convertites of as good fame for their learning and good parts in your Universities and in their respective countries as these I have been bold to name their understanding being now better disposed to discern and reflect upon their former errours by the palpable confusion and unconsciable effects they saw e-every where sprouted and sprouting out of the late Reformation begun by Luther Errata in the Preface PAge 6. line 13. read pretence of p. 12. l. 6. r. the bread l. ult r. of a little ERRATA PAge 3. line 28. read title p. 7. l. 13. dele one at p. 11. l. 15. dele in p. 21. l. 24. r. swinge over p. 23. l. 13. r. in these p. 39. l. ult r. reasonable Other lesse materiall faults with some false pointings the discerning Reader will easily discover and correct Most Excellent and renowned Soveraign IT is not unknown to all that know me in England that for these many years I have had my health very ill And therfore having from time to time used all the meanes and medicines that England could afford last of all by the advice of my Physitians I have made it my humble suit unto your Majesty that I might travell unto the Spa for the use of those waters

of their two Sacraments They had decencies in their Burialls They had severall practises outwardly religious and in brief they had so many Reliques of the old Christianity of their Countrey as did manifestly distinguish them from Jews Turks and other more prophane people All which as they were plausible stayes to with-hold men in the Protestant Religion and not to thinke on any other especially if they were born and bred in Protestancy so made they any mans conversion to Catholike Religion in those daies more remarkable more wondered at and more subject to the question what moved him to forsake the Protestant Withall D. Cariers favour with his Prince together with his great learning and good parts making him capable of the chiefest spirituall dignities and promotions in the Kingdome might well move many to take notice of his conversion and wonder he should change both his present possessions pregnant hopes of more for the poor contemptible being of an exiled Papist perhaps scanted in necessaries to live and breath But now to use the Prophet Jeremies words in his Threnes c. 4. v. 1. cap. 2. v. 2. though in a different sense Obscuratum est aurum mutatus est color optimus dispersi sunt lapides Sanctuarii in capite omnium platearum what seemed gold among the Protestants is now altogether darkned and cast off as drosse the most specious of their fair colours is faded an argument it was of no long lasting complexion the seeming corner stones of their seeming Sanctuary are dispersed in the head of all the streets The sworne supreme head of their Church though gray aged and well deserved of them is made his vassalls subject their ward their captive scarce allowed to keep his own head on his shoulders and whilst it is on is little lesse then basely foot-balled by the miscreants of his owne Subjects Their Bishops once the corner-stones of the English Sanctuary or Reformation are even levelled to the flock by their owne Disciplinated sheep yea I may say facti sunt opprobrium vicinis subsannatio illusio his qui in circuitu sunt they are truly become a reproach to their neighbours a scorne and mock to all about them The Reformation now thought best for England can subsist they say as well without Bishops as their neighbour Churches Their old Ordination of Ministers and as old as it is onely invented in King Edward the sixths daies is already laid to the wall this present Parliament hath found a newer way to supply the Bishops Office there is no pretence to Mission derived by any order from the Apostles all claime an equall right to the Pulpit Tinkers Weavers Taylors Fidlers Souldiers nor do any faile of novell-hunting auditors some of the old Protestant Preachers silenced by the Parliament others fallen to silence of themselves as not knowing what to preach to day for fear they be driven to contradict it in the next Sermon or to fight for their Pulpit others preach according to the times though against their owne consciences to save their livings And good God! what non-sense ignorances seditious rebellious Doctrines yea Blasphemies do the Tubs and Pulpits ring with whilst they are knocks and belaboured by those new Mountebank Predicants or Praters who decry and contemn the Lords Prayer the Apostles Creed and ten Commandements as rags and reliques of Popery and Superstition Their Liturgie which began in the nonageraign of Edw. the 6. and after some years interruption got stronger footing by an Act of Parliament in Q. Elizabeths daies and so was become almost of fourscore years prescription half as old as one of our Grandfathers is decryed antiquated by the present Parliament contemned by the people and succeeded by a new thing called a Directory of 4. or 5. yeares unquiet standing which begins already to lose credit with its first accepters though as yet the stronger Faction not without frequent scuffles and blood-shed keeps it perforce in many Churches and what is kept in perforce it neither likely to breed devotion unlesse it be of the new garb nor to be of long durance if the old Proverb faile not Nihil violentum diuturnum Their former marke of thirty nine Articles is little regarded if not quite out of date yea which is worse the Apostles Creed the perpetuall marke or symbol of a Christian is questioned and hath stood these six or seven yeares subjected to the disquisition of the Parliaments subpedancan Divines without determination as yet whether it be to be imbraced all and intirely for truth or only part Concerning the solemnities of their Sacraments I need not tell you into what omission and confusion they are fallen about their Lords Supper some Churches having had no Communion at all these six or seven years some using it after the old fashion others after the new some receive it kneeling some standing some sitting none of the new-modell'd Ministers some of the old did others derided it claiming more power to consecrate then the Layicks of the Parliament can give them which they know to be no more then the Bakers that sell them bread can sell with it As for their Sacrament of Baptisme besides their novelty in the manner and circumstances it is certaine they are defective in some places even in the essentialls I meane in the words of Institution and application of water some saying instead of I baptize thee in the Name of the Father c. We take thee into the Congregation of the faithfull Whether all apply the water either at all or rightly is more then my distance out of the Countrey permits me to learne but not more then I have reason to doubt of And where any of the essentialls are wanting there certainely the child is not baptized but left as he was borne a child of perdition by the state of originall sin The Burialls now among the Reformed in England are in a manner prophane in many places the dead being throwne into the ground like dogs and not a word said nor have they willingly more differences of daies by holy or fast in memory of Christian mysteries then Turks and Infidells nor finally is there any thing almost out of the Catholikes hands left in the Countrey that can perswade a travelling stranger to think England to be rather Christian then Turkish excepting the outward shape of Churches which of the charges to alter them be not a Remora may be also reformed ere long To these metamorphosies or changes of late inventions into the present of a little fresher coine adde the confounded Chaos we see now in matters of Religion throughout the Kingdome God Almighty permitting the monster of Reformation to reveale its owne turpitude and to betray its selfe by its cloven feet of Sects and Divisions to be what indeed it is that men might more easily discern it to beat it down and detest it Luther himselfe at the first and afterwards his followers of whatsoever Reformation were mightily tormented with those questions