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A61457
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An account of the growth of deism in England
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Stephens, William, d. 1718.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing S5459; ESTC R19943
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19,063
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34
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to shew 'em any kindness And this they submit to as being Self-conscious that the Jacobites have a Right to reproach them so that they are willing to appease the anger of their old Friends by their best Services Now the Jacobites having always an innate Hatred to the Whigs as they now stile all those who think themselves obliged to own the King for their rightful Sovereign and being willing to keep up their old Master's Right to the Crown to which the Whigs are irreconcileable Enemies easily prevail upon these de factos to oppress those other sort of Men which is an Office they are as willing to undertake as the Jacobites can be to put it upon ' em Thus it cometh to pass that according as an open professed Enemy to the Government shall dictate a Church-man shall strenuously exert that Power the King has given him to discourage and oppress his Dutiful and Loyal Subjects I will only said a certain Person make a Supposition to shew you how this may be suppose the King should bestow a Bishoprick upon a de facto Doctor and this Doctor should there find his old Acquaintance Dr. H. and being a Stranger in his Diocese should be willing to instruct himself in the Characters of Men from the good D. would it not fall out so that the Clergy of that Diocese must be used well or ill as the most open and notorious Enemy the Government hath shall design And was it not possible that the E. of N. might oblige his old Friends in the same manner Thus though King James be at last excluded his Subjects reign in his stead And whether an Oath of Abjuration laid upon the Jacobites Proxy-men will put an end to this Corruption Time must tell us 5. But to return to the Reasons or Prejudices I may rather call 'em which occasion Deism It hath been observed to me that where the Notion of a Church hath been carried on with the highest Tide there even natural Religion is at the lowest Ebb as in Italy of old and lately in France where gross Immoralities and Atheism are at the greatest height And though in our Reformation we discarded some Idolatrous and Superstitious Doctrines and Practices which were grown scandalous among the People yet still Christ was made to serve that turn which his Holy Vicar can no longer do viz. Support an Holy Order of Men in as haughty Insolences in as proud ambitious and malicious Designs as those which King Henry though a Son of the Church and his Times could not bear Now in answer to this I bid these Deists only read the Bible and see if the Spirit of that Book be not as good as their Thoughts can reach to or let 'em read the Character of the Christian Religion given by Sir Matthew Hale in the first of his Three Letters concerning Religion where he saith It teacheth and tuters the Soul to a high Reverence and Veneration of Almighty God a sincere and upright Walking as in the Presence of the invisible all-seeing God It makes a Man truly love to Honour to Obey him and therefore careful to know what his Will is It renders the Heart highly thankful to him both as his Creator Redeemer and Benefactor It makes a Man entirely to depend upon to seek to him for Guidance and Direction and Protection to submit to his Will with all Patience and Resignation of Soul It gives the Law not only to his Words and Actions but to his very Thoughts and Purposes It bringeth a Man to such a Deportment both of External and Internal Sobriety as may be decent in the Presence of God and his holy Angels It crusheth and casts down all Pride and Haughtiness both in a Man's Heart and Carriage and gives him an humble frame of Soul and Life both in the sight of God and Men It regulates and governs the Passions of the Mind and brings them into due moderation and frame It gives a Man a right estimate of this present World and sets the Heart and Hopes above it so that he never loves it more than it deserves It makes the Wealth and Glory of this World high Places and great Preferments but of a low and little value to him so that he is neither covetous nor ambitious nor over-sollicitous concerning the advantages of it It brings a Man to that frame that Righteousness Justice Honesty and Fidelity is as 't were part of his Nature he can sooner dye than commit or purpose that which is unjust dishonest or unworthy a good Man It makes him value the love of God and Peace of Conscience above all the Wealth and Honours in the World and be very vigilant to keep it inviolably Though he be under a due Apprehension of the Love of God yet it keeps him humble and watchful and free from all Presumption so that he dares not under a vain Confidence of the Indulgence of God commit or purpose the least injury to man He performs all his Duties to God in Sincerity Integrity and Constancy and while he lives on Earth his Conversation his Hopes his Treasure and the Flower of his Expectation is in Heaven and he entirely endeavours to walk suitably to such a Hope In Sum it restores the Image of God unto the Soul in Righteousness and true Holiness I prevail'd upon one of my Friends a Deist to read those three Letters because therein the Substance of the Christian Religion is distinguish'd from the Circumstantials and Appendages for want of which distinction being well understood Deism has arose as that great Man in the fore-cited Letter hath observed When Men says he see so much Religion placed by Professors of Christianity in these things which every intelligent Man values but as Forms or Inventions or Modes or Artifices and yet as great weight laid upon them as great fervour and animosity us'd for or against them as almost for any Points of Christian Religion They are apt presently to censure and throw off all Religion and reckon all of the same make Thus that Upright Judge whose three Letters my Friend having read did well approve of 'em acknowledging that with great Exactness he had distinguished between Religion and Priest-craft And he added If you will shew me Sir any Christian Church where that distinction is observed I will become a Member of it I recommended the Church of England he presently told me that he had read the 39 Articles and observed that 3 of them were wholly design'd to uphold the Power of the Clergy over the People And then he bad me only compare the Design which has been and still is carrying on under the Name of the Church of England with the Design of the Christian Religion as 't is described by Sir Matthew Hale and I should find the one in all its parts a Contradiction to the other 'T is plain said he the Clergy do not allow of Sir Matthew's Notions nor will they suffer us to take any thing for
Christian Faith puts upon the ill-nature of Divines when they are disputing about matters of Religion 'T is common for Philosophers Lawyers Physicians c. to differ about matters which concern their Professions and write one against another But you will find some Temper and Decorum observed in their Writings But let the Controversy be about any Branch of Christian Faith and then see the Odium Theologorum the Malice of Divines in the late Writings of two of your Church Doctors against each other at least this shews that Christian Faith doth not improve the Temper of such Men who are of mean Birth and narrow Education And I cannot but observe that your Protestant Malice is under a worse Management than the Popish they only thirst for the Blood of Protestants but you are for sucking one anothers Blood as when for the Service of King Charles the II. who was Head of your Church and his Popish Brother the Blood of the best Protestants in England and some of them of your own Church was to be spilt the Court Blood-suckers viz. Attorney general and Judges besides Juries and Evidence were all of 'em chosen Men out of your own Church and the Posse of the Clergy was raised to hold their Heads to the Block by Preaching the Doctrine of Passive Obedience But in requital it must be confessed that your Clergy require the King to do their Persecuting Journey-work with the same Insolence as the Popish Priesthood use For must not the Sovereign Monarch of England Scotland France and Ireland by his Authority Royal execute the Decrees and Anathema's of the Arch-deacons and Bishops Chancellors by Imprisoning his loyal and useful Subjects for not conforming to their Ceremonies If a King will submit to this Drudgery he shall have the vox Cleri of his side and be as great as Noise and fulsom Flattery can make him but in the mean time is really King but of one Moiety of his People whilst the danger which the other half apprehend from the Secular Arm directed by Spiritual Power of Necessity weaneth their Hearts from the Government Thus Charles the II. who for two Years after his Return reigned in the Hearts of all his People was by the Act of Uniformity reduced to be King of the Church-party and at last whilst the Popish and Protestant Priesthood zealously contended whose Property he should be like the Truth among Controversial Divines he was lost in the Scuffle He instanced in likewise the late King James who said he had it in his power to be universally beloved and obey'd beyond any King of England this Age has produced His Right to the Crown was owned by all his Wilfulness had passed upon the Church of England Party for Magnanimous Resolution which struck such an Awe upon them that they were coming to a Temper and would have consented to a Toleration of Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholicks too provided their Maintenance might be continued to them Thus the Heart of all England had been set upon the King but the Popish Priesthood would be content with nothing less than delivering the whole Nation to Satan and their King must execute the dreadful Anathema though 't was manifest that he must thereby lessen himself to the size of one of the 7 Kings of Kent for he could be Sovereign of no more than the Two hundredth part of the People For King Charles in numbering the People had found that the Proportion between Papist and Protestant was as 1 to 200 whereas had his own Priesthood been so favourable to him as to have excused him from executing that Satanical Power which by a Right purely Divine was vested in Sacred Majesty his Reign might have been happy and his Memory precious What an unhappy Effect had the Spirit of Father Laud upon King Charles the First And what hath brought Lewis the XIV to the present Diminution of his Glory but that haughty Insolence and unnatural Cruelty in Persecuting his own Subjects which Father la Chaise has inspired him with What Figure will this Grand Monarch make in Story His Name will pollute the Annals of this Age and his cowardly Conquests be the Scorn of Posterity Now from all that he had said he concluded that for Luck-sake as well as to preserve his good Nature he would be cautious of being at least a zealous Christian 8. 'T was not long since I met one of my old Acquaintance who told me that he had lately cast off these Prejudices he had conceived against the Christian Faith by the Assistance of a Book called The Five Letters of Inspiration By the last of those Letters he was convinced of the reality of reveal'd Religion from the Intrinsick value and Excellency thereof and he was fully confirmed in his Judgment by a late Book called The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scripture Upon this he had read over the Old-Testament once and the New several times with great attention of Mind Indeed he always thought the Moral part of the Bible very good but then he also thought that by the strength of his own Reason he could have written as good a Moral himself But by the last of these Books he was convinced that he was indebted to Revelation more than he thought of and considering how long the Ceremonial Law had obtain'd among the Jews and what a profound respect they paid to the Scribes Pharisees and Spiritual Guides and Rulers he plainly saw that there was need enough of Miracle to bear down their Prejudices to make 'em leave their Ceremonies and listen to that excellent Moral which Christ gave 'em nay he was convinced that no Miracles were strong enough to prevail over the Priest or a Priest-ridden People to become Proselytes to the Doctrine of universal Love and Charity for said he if a Teacher should now be sent from Heaven with this Message that all the Protestant Parties in England should be reconciled and live well with one another making nothing necessary to their religious Communion but what Christ had appointed and such Circumstances as Time and Place and what in the nature of the thing was needful and if this Teacher's Mission were confirm'd by Miracle it would have as he thought no better effect upon our several Sects of Clergy and those who are bigotted to their Parties than it had upon the Pharisees and their Disciples of old Having heard him speak so sharply against the Clergy after his old way I could not but tell him that I perceived he was but almost a Christian for he who loveth the Institution of Christ cannot but respect those who are the Ministers thereof at least I hoped that he would pay a respect to the Clergy of the Church of England which was the best Reformed Church in the World and therefore I expected that he was already a Member of our Church He reply'd that he should always be ready to pay his respect to every good Man of what Order or Degree