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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29318	Brethren in iniquity, or, The confederacy of Papists with sectaries, for the destroying of the true religion, as by law establish'd, plainly detected wherein is shewed a farther account of the Romish snares and intrigues for the destroying the true reformed religion, as professed in the Church of England, and established by law, and for the introducing of popery or atheism among us : clearly shewing from very authentick writers and testimonies, that the principal ways and methods whereby the papists have sought the ruine of our religion and church, from the beginning of our Reformation, to the present times, and by which they are still in hopes of compassing it, are by promoting of toleration, or pretended liberty of conscience, and that for above these sixscore years the papists have so craftily influenced our dissenters, as to make them the unhappy instruments of effecting their most pernicious designs, which they contrived for, the subverting our church and state.		1690 (1690)	Wing B4382; ESTC R6507	50,245	71

that concerns the eternal Salvation of the Soul wherein to erre cannot but be most dangerous and destructive Diversity of Religion disjoints and distracts the minds of Men and is the seminary of perpetual Hatreds Jealousies Seditions Wars if any thing in the World be and in a little time either a Schism in the State begets a Schism in the Church or a Schism in the Church begets a Schism in the State that is either Religion and the Church is prejudiced by civil Contentions or Church Controversies and Disputes about Opinions break out into Civil Wars Men will at last take up Swords and Spears instead of Pens and defend by Arms what they cannot do by Arguments Once for all It is the preservation of Religion and Reformation of it which you have covenanted to endeavour and not a Liberty of Opinion that will consist with neither It is the Extirpation of Heresie and Schism that you have covenanted which if it be connived at why doth the Apostle reprove the Corinthians for their Schism so much and why doth the Lord Jesus commend the Angel of the Church of Ephesus for trying those which said they were Apostles and were not And why is the Angel of the Church of Thyatira reproved for suffering that Woman jezebel who called her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce If once we come to this that any Man be suffered to teach what he pleaseth to seduce whom he list to be of what Faith or Religion seems good in his own Eyes farewel Covenant farewel reformed Religion farewel the Peace and Glory of England if that day once come It is not usual nay it is not possible that they which love God sincerely should desire to cherish differing Religions For it is most certain He that admits contrary Religions believes neither of them In another Sermon at Paul's Feb. 8. 1645. p. 12. Mr. Newcomen saith If it be lawful for every Man to entertain and hold what Opinion he pleaseth how differing soever from the Opinion and Judgment of the rest of the Church yet because this is his Opinion and his Judgment is perswaded of it he must follow his own Judgment and that this Liberty of practising his Judgment be as some say Liberty of Conscience part of the Liberty purchased by Jesus and to restrain it is in their Language Persecution Tyranny c. If this were true surely Paul did very ill to charge the Corinthians with so much Authority to be of the same mind and of the same Judgment 2 Cor. 13.11 Might not some among the Corinthians have said to Paul This is a hard usage this is to rack a low Man to the same length with a taller and to cut a tall Man to the stature of one that is low as Procrustes did by his Guests to suit his Bed What the same Judgment and the same Mind Will not Paul allow difference of Lights and Sights Might not some one among the Corinthians have said What if I am of Opinion that there is no Resurrection what hath Paul or any Man to do with that It is my Conscience and it is my Liberty what hath any Man to do with my Conscience more than I with his Might not Hymeneus have said What if it be my Opinion That the Resurrection is past already 2 Tim. 2.18 what hath Paul to doe with that Yes saith Paul If ye persist obstinate I will Excommunicate you I will deliver you up to Satan that you may learn not to blaspheme 1 Tim. 1.20 Certainly this shelter this Asylum of Error falsly called Liberty of Conscience was not thought of in former Times See more of the sinfulness and very mischievous Consequences of Toleration in the Book of the Learned Presbyterian Minister Mr. Thomas Edwards entitled The casting down of the last and strongest hold of Satan or a Treatise against Toleration and pretended Liberty of Conscience wherein by Scripture sound Reason Fathers Schoolmen Casuists Protestants Divines of all Nations Confessions of Faith of the reformed Churches Ecclesiastical Histories and constant Practice of the most pious and wisest Emperors Princes States the best Writers of Politicks the Experience of all Ages yea by divers Principles and Proceedings of Sectaries themselves as Donatists Anabaptists Brownists and Independants the unlawfulness and mischief in a Christian State or Kingdom both of an universal Toleration of all Religions and of a limited or bounded of some Sects only are clearly proved and demonstrated with all the material Grounds and Reasons brought for such Tolerations fully answered Printed 1647. Mr. Edmund Calamy his Opinion concerning the Sinfulness of Separating from the publick Assemblies Take heed of separating from the Publick Assemblies of the Saints I have found by experience that all our Church Calamities have sprung from this Root He that separates from the publick Worship is like a man tumbling down a Hill and never leaving till he comes to the bottom of it I could relate many sad Stories of persons professing Godliness who out of dislike to our Church-meetings began at first to separate from them and after many Changes and Alterations were turned some of them Ranters some Quakers some Anabaptists some direct Atheists But I forbear you must hold Communion with all those Churches with which Christ holds Communion you must separate from the Sins of Christians but not from the Ordinances of Christ Take heed of Unchurching the Churches of Christ least you prove Schismaticks instead of being true Christians Mr. Edmund Calamy 's Godly Man's Ark Epist. Dedic to the Parish of Aldermanbury Direction Fourteenth A Sentence of Mr. Richard Baxter concerning the evils and great danger of leaving Parish Churches Consider this 'T is the Judgment of some That thousands are gone to Hell and ten thousands upon their march thither that in all probability had never come there if they had not been tempted from the Parish Churches for the enjoyment of Communion in a purer Church Mr. Richard Baxter 's Epist to separate Congregations Mr. Baxter his Sence of the Evils of different Rites and Opinions and of the necessity of Vniformity to preserve the Church From diversity in Opinion and external Rites resulteth Dislike thence Enmity thence Opposition thence Schism in Church and Sedition in State the State not standing secure without the Church nor the Church without Unity nor Unity without Uniformity Votes of the Honourable House of Commons Feb. 5. 1662. upon reading his Majesty's gracious Declaration and Speech c. Die Mercurii 25. Feb. Regni Car. 2. Regis 15o. Resolved nemine contradicente THAT the humble Thanks of this House be returned to his Majesty for his Resolution to maintain the Act of Uniformity Resolved also That it be presented to the King's Majesty as the humble Advice of the House That no Indulgence be granted to the Dissenters from the Act of Uniformity Part of their Address which contains their Reasons against Toleration is as followeth After all this we most humbly beseech your Majesty to

Jew and gave the Anabaptists the glory of his conversion and rebaptizing who was afterwards discovered at New-castle is published and commonly known and too many others have more neatly play'd their game And though many of the more sober Anabaptists would not be so usefull to the Papists as they have expected Yet multitudes of them too far answered their expectations I shall tell you next of some of those Heresies or Parties among us that are the Papists own spawn or progeny either they laid the egg or hatch'd it or both And it is most certain that Libertinism or Freedom for all Religions was spawned by the Jesuits who hate it in Spain Italy and France but love it in England I have met with the masked Papists my self that have been very zealous and busie to promote this Liberty of Conscience as they deceitfully call it for by this means they may have liberty for themselves and liberty to break us in pieces by Sects and also liberty under the vizour of a Sectary of any tolarated sort to oppose the Ministry and Doctrine of Truth There are also some juggling Papists especially in our Councils Civil and Ecclesiastick that play their game by over-doing and making everything to be Popish and Antichristian to drive us into extreams and into opinions in which we may be easily baffled and it s not a little that they have won of us at this game In this book of Mr. Baxter a great deal more to this purpose may be seen how much the Papists work their designs by the means of our Sectaries whom they decoy And farther Mr. Baxter in 1671. a little before the Indulgence then came forth was so sensible of the mischief of Separation that he saith in his Preface to the defence of the cure of Church Divisions p. 17. That our Divisions gratify the Papists and greatly hazard the Protestant Religion and that more than most of you seemeth to believe or regard where he speaks to the separating people and among other great inconveniences which he mentions this is one That Popery will get by it so great advantage as may hazard us all and we may lose that which the several Parties do contend about And p. 52. c. He saith that two ways Popery will grow out of our divisions First By the odium and scorn of our disagrements in consistency and multiplied Sects they will perswade people that we must come for unity to them or else run mad and crumble into dust and individuals Thousands have been drawn to Popery or confirmed in it by this argument already and I am perswaded that confirmed in it by this argument already and I am perswaded that all the arguments else in Bellarmine and all other books that ever were written have not done so much to make Papists in England as the multitude of Sects among our selves yea some Professours of Religious strictness or great esteem for Godliness have turned Papists themselves when they were giddy and wearied with turnings and when they had run from Sect to Sect and found no consistency in any Secondly Either the Papists by increasing the divisions would make them be accounted seditious rebellious and dangerous to the publick peace or else when so many parties are constrain'd to beg and wait for Liberty the Papists may not be shut out alone but have toleration with the rest And saith he shall they use our hands to doe their works and pull their freedom out of the sire We have already unspeakably served them both in this and in abating the Odium of the Gunpowder-plot and their otehr Treasons Insurrections and Spanish-invasion Thus freely did Mr. Baxter write at that time and even after that Indulgence he hath these remarkable passages concerning the separating and dividing humour of their people in his sacrilegious desertion c. Pag. 103. It shameth and grieveth us to see and hear from England and New-England this common cry We are indangered by Divisions because the self-conceited part of the Religious people will not be ruled by their Pastours but must have their way and will needs be Rulers of the Church and them And soon after he saith to them You have made more Papists than ever you or we are like to recover Nothing is any whit considerable that a Papist hath to say till he cometh to your case and saith Doth not experience tell you that without papal Unity and Force these people will never be ruled or united It is you that tempt them to use Fire and Faggot that will not be ruled nor kept in concord And must you even you that should be our confort become our shame and break our hearts and make men Papists by your Temptation Woe to the World because of offences and woe to some by whom they come To shew yet farther what Insluence the Jesuitical Counsels have had upon some people as to the course of Separation I shall produce the Testimony of a very considerable Man among them who understood these affairs as well as any Man viz. Mr. Philip Nye who not long before his Death foreseeing the mischievous Consequence of these extravagant heats the people were running into wrote a Discourse on purpose to prove it lawful to hear the Conforming Ministers and answers all the Objections against it and towards the Conclusion he wonders how the differing Parties come to be so agreed in thinking it unlawful to hear us preach but he saith He is perswaded it is one constant design of Satan in the v ariety of ways of Religion he hath set on foot by Jesuits among us let us therefore be more aware of whatsoever tends that way Here we have a plain Confession of a very leading Man among the Dissenters that the Jesuits were very busie among them and that they and the Devil joined together in setting them at the greatest distance possible from the Church of England and that those who would countermine the Jesuits must avoid whatever tends to that height of Separation the People were run into And as the Reverend and Learned Doctor Stilling fleet in the Preface to his excellent Book Entituled The unreasonableness of Separation saith If we trace the foot-steps of our Separation we shall sind the Jesuitical Party had a great insluence on the very first beginnings of it for which we must consider that when the Church of England was restored in Queen Elizabeth's Reign there was no open Separation from the Communion of it for several years neither by Papists nor Nonconformists At last the more zealous Party of the Foreign Priests and Jesuits finding this compliance would in the end utterly destroy the Popish interest in England they began to draw off the secret Papists from all Conformity with our Church which the old Queen Mary's Priests allow'd them in This raised some heat among themselves but at last the way of Separation prevail'd as the more pure and perfect way But this was not thought sufficient bu these busie Factors for the

used and the Government as in an ague divided between hot and cold sits no wonder if Laws so unsteadily executed have failed of their effect But if the Government shall think it sit to imitate that prudent excellent Princess and in instead of shewing any fear of the Dissenters put the Laws moderately in execution against them we shall no doubt in a short time find the good effects of it in the happy uniting them to the Church of England to the great disappointment and grief of the Papists And till this be done we can expect no other than Confusion and disorder in the Church and Distraction in the State And the Book that was written in the Oliverian days by a learned Presbyterian intituled Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty licenced by Ja. Cranford will justifie such a proceeding against the several sorts of Dissenters and vindicate it from the odious Imputation of Persecution In which Book there is this memorable sentence That Liberty of Horesie and Schism is no part of the Liberty of Conscience which Christ hath purchased for us but that under these fair colours and handsome pretexts Sectaries infuse their poison their pernitious God-provoking Truth-defacing Church-ruinating and State-shaking Toleration The Character which the Great and good Arch-bishop Whitgift gave of the turbulent Spirits of the Puritans is very considerable in a Letter of his to the Privy Council which was occasion'd by a Paper of some Suffolk Ministers True it is saith he they are no Jesuits neither are they charged to be so but notwithstanding they are contentious in the Church of England and by their Contentions they minister occasion of offence to those which are seduced by Jesuits and give the Sacraments against the Form of publick Prayer us'd in this Church and by Law establish'd and thereby increase the number of them and consirm them in their willfulness They also make a Schism in the Church and draw many other of her Majesty's Subjects to the misliking of her Laws and Government in Causes Ecclesiastical so far are they from perswading Men to Obedience or at least if they perswade them to it in the one part of her Authority in Causes Civil they disswade them from it as much in the other in Causes Ecclesiastical so that indeed they pluck down with the one hand that which they seem to build with the other And is is truly observed by Doctor Tompkins in his Pleas c. Pag. 141. That notwithstanding all the Zeal which the Non-consormists doe declare against Popery it is well known that they have and as their Interest leads them can still join both Counsels and Arms together The leading Men of both Parties in Ireland were wonderfully great together all the while that the Design was managing against the Earl of Strafford And here in England in the Declaration which King Charles I. set forth concerning the Success of the Battel at Edgehill on October 23. 1643. he hath left this Memorial to all Posterity All Men know the great member of Papists which serve in their Armies Commanders and others the great Industry to corrupt the Loyalty and Affection of all our loving Subjects of that Religion the private Promises and Vndertakings that they have made to them That if they would assist them against us all the Laws made in their prejudice should be repealed The Popish Party also used the same perswasive methods in the late Days of King James the Second to allure the Dissenters to join with them for the pulling down the Established true Religion and how effectually this Bait was swallowed by them and into what a hellish Confederacy these two Brethren in Iniquity enter'd together for the Destruction of the Church of England their many scandalous Addresses and other their libellous Invectives against the Church of England which were stuffed with the most inveterate Hatred Rancour and Malice that Hell could devise against it do abundantly testifie nor can I better express suitably to their deserts how foolishly as well as criminally they acted in those Days inconsistent with Prudence Honesty and their former Clamours against Popery and Arbitrary Government Then in the Words of a late Author their Friend and Favourer who professes a great deal of kindness for them in many Pages of his Book Entitled A Representation of the threatning Dangers impending over Protestants in Great Britain before the coming of his Highness the Prince of Orange In this Book notwithstanding the good will he shews to the Dissenters and his undeserved Censures and Reproaches of the Church of England which very spitefully do abound in it yet when he came to consider the Dissenters siding so much with the Papists and the brave opposition the Members of the Church of England made against Popery it drew from him smart reflections on the one and very high Commendations of the other according to the just Merits insomuch that by reason of the Dissenters many flattering Addresses and their countenancing and defending the King 's Arbitrary unjustifiable Proceedings he says of them Pag. 44. The World has just ground to say That the Phanaticks are not governed by Principles but that the measures they walk by are what conduceth to the private and personal Benefit or what lies in a tendency to their loss and prejudice and that it was not King Charles II. his Vsurping an Arbitrary and Illegal Power that offended them but that they were not the Objects in whose favour it was Exercised And Pag. 46. he saith this of them Notwithstanding all the danger from Popery that the Nation was exposed unto and all the hazard that the Souls of Men were in of being poisoned with Romish Principles yet instead of Preaching or Writing against any of the Doctrines of the Church of Rome they agreed among themselves and with such of their Congregations as approved of their procedure not so much as to mention them but to leave the Province of defending our Religion and of detecting the falshood of Papal Tenets to the Pastors and Gentlemen of the Church of England And being asked as he knew of some that were why they did not preach against Antichrist and confute the Papal Doctrines they very gravely replied That by preaching Christ they did preach against Antichrist and that by teaching the Gospel they refuted Popery which is such a piece of fraudulent and guileful Subterfuge that I want words bad enough to express the Knavery and Criminalness of it It was but the other Day that the conformable Clergy were represented by some of the Dissenters not only as favourers of Popery but as endeavouring to hale it in upon us by all the methods and ways that lay within their Circles and yet now the whole Defence of the reformed Religion must be entirely divolved into their Hands And when all the sluces were pulled up that had been made to hinder Popery from overflowing the Nation they were left alone to stem the Inundation and prevent the Deluge They among

the Phanaticks that boasted to be the most avowed and irreconcilable Enemies of the Church of Rome were not only become altogether silent when they saw the Kingdom pestered with a swarm of busie and seducing Emissaries but were turned Advocates for that Arbitrary Paper whereby we were surrendered as a prey unto them and did make it their Business to detract from the Reputation of the National Ministers The Members of the Church of England wrote then above 220. Books against Popery when there were not above one or two writ by the Non-conformists as is to be seen in the late Lift or Accompt that was published of them who with a Zeal becoming their Office and a Learning which deserves to be admired did set themselves in opposition to that croaking fry and did enough by their excellent and unimitable writings to save People from being deluded and perverted if either unanswerable Confutations of Popery or demonstrative Desences of the Articles and Doctrines of the Reformed Religion can have any efficacy upon the minds of Men. And this Author farther saith Among other fulsome Flatteries made to his Majesty by an addressing Dissenter he found this hypocritical and shameful Adulation namely That if there should remain any Seeds of Disloyalty in any of his Subjects the transcendant Goodness exerted in his Declaratian would mortifie and kill them To which he might have added with more Truth That the same transcendant Goodness had admost destroy'd all the Seeds of their Honesty and mortified all their Care and Concernment for the Interest of Jesus Christ and for the Reformed Religion Their old strain of zealous Preaching against the Idolatry of Rome and concerning the coming out of Babylon my People were grown out of Fashion with them And whosoever should come into their Assemblies would think for any thing that he there heard delivered from their Pulpits that she which was the Whore of Babylon a few Years ago were now become a Chaste Spouse and that what were heretofore the damnable Doctrines of Popery were of late turned innocent and harmless Opinions And as they are already arrived to believe a Roman Catholick the best King so they may in a little time come to esteem Papists for the best Christians This and a great deal more to the same purpose you may find in this Book of smart reflections upon the Dissenters scandalous and abominable wicked Confederacy with the Papists for the subverting the true reformed Religon The Troublers of our Israel being thus plainly manifested to the World and a true Discovery made in the several Collections from whence the Evils and Miseries did principally arise that have befallen our Church and State since the days of Queen Elizabeth unto these present times and which will undoubtedly bring Ruine Confusion and Disorder on both if not seasonably and effectually redressed for so the Fountain of Truth and Wisdom tells us Matth. 12.25 That a Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation and every City or House divided against it self cannot stand The foregoing accounts are therefore humbly offer'd to the serious perusal of our Church and State-Physicians the Parliament and Convocation to find out and apply proper means and remedies for the preventing the farther growth of these mischiefs which not only threaten but genuinely tend and hasten to the destruction of the true establish'd Religion and of our Nation And that they may zealously go about this good work and effectually finish it it is the Interest and Duty of all good Christians to pray for them both as we are taught in that excellent Form in our Liturgy That God would be pleased to direct and prosper all their Consultations to the Advancement of his Glory the good of his Church and the Safety Honour and Well-fare of their Majesties and Kingdoms That all things may be so ordered and setled by their endeavours upon the best and surest Foundations that Peace and Happiness Truth and Justice Religion and Piety may be establish'd among us for all Generations And it is no less the Duty of all that profess themselves Members of our Church to be sincerely minded and not to be mockers with God but earnestly to seek and endeavour after the freeing us from those evils which we pray to be delivered from in our Litany viz. From all Sedition privy Conspiracy and Rebellion from all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from hardness of Heart and contempt of God's Word and Commandments and that after the putting up these Petitions in the Church to the Throne of Grace that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of Truth and hold the Faith in Unity of Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness of Life and that God would give to us and all Nations Unity Peace and Concord and bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived none of us may be found such wretched self-condemners in our Practice and wicked Prevaricators with God and the Church as to act directly contrary to what we pray for in the promoting of a Connivence Toleration or Libertinism which will establish Schism propagate and multiply Heresies breed Discord and Divisions and will also impower and commission Satan to sow his tares and to seduce multitudes from the ways of Truth Peace Unity and Righteousness and when people are left at Liberty in matters of Religion to do what seemeth good in their own eyes they seldom do what is good in the Lord's eyes but are laid open to great Temptations of being drawn away into the paths of the most dangerous errors Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth Rom. 14.22 Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap Gal. 6.7 St. Paul's Prophecy of the Downfal and Suppression of seducing Separatists or Dividers 2 Tim. 3.8 9. Now as Jannes and Jambres Aegyptian Magicians withstood Moses so do these also resist the Truth men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifested as theirs also was FINIS