Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
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A37324
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A letter from a Protestant of integrity to a principal peer of the realm now sitting in Parliament by way of animadversion on a letter from a person of quality to the same peer of the realm : occasioned by the present debate upon the penal laws.
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C. D.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing D53; ESTC R26472
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11,502
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20
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throughout his whole book as if they onely were his Antagonists My Lord I am not Advocate for the Presbyterians the chief unhappy declining party among us yet I cannot in retired and serious thoughts but wish the present violence and contempt poured on them may be found to redound to the honour and good of our King and Kingdom Whatsoever transcendent power over Kings and States some ambitious men cloathed with that appellation might pursue we cannot deny the generality of that party to have done His Majestie most eminent service and were they as conformable in their Ecclesiasticks as they are sound in their Politicks they would be ranked among the best most learned and seriously pious of His Majesties Subjects To give them their due which we say must not be denyed to the Devil I finde Crofton himself who is deemed the most violent of them in the very book for which he now suffers so fully and plainly to assert his Majesties Supremacy Immunity from all humane condition as to His Subjects allegiance and co-action and so fully square in all his Politicks that I cannot but question the prudence not to say the justice of his so long and severe durance But my Lord let these men be what they will I am sure the Presbyterians lose not nor doth our Church gain by these and the like raging reproaches representing them the onely Protestants as if our Prelatical Clergy were as they are suspected to be the fast friends to Papacy and Roman Catholicks Sure my Lord this person of quality never heard of Cranmer Bancrofts Hall Moreton Vsher Davenant Downam and many other Prelates who were anti-Presbyters and yet by pen and pulpit pressed No peace with Rome It is Sir the strength of schism to suggest and give men cause to suppose our suppression thereof is the striking hands with superstition My Lord when Presbyters are out of play I hope the Papists shall finde the Protestants spirit abide on the Prelates and Clergy of the Church of England who will not cease from their pulpits and presses to declare That Papists or Roman Catholicks qua tales believing and affirming no faith is to be kept with Hereticks as they account all Protestants That the Pope is in all things to be obeyed as a power absolute and infallible That the Pope may and can dispence with and absolve all oathes civil or religious obligations the very sinews of humane society That he is Christs Vicar and as such hath the universal power of the Kingdoms of the eaâ—th and may give them to whom he will That the Popes Excommunication dischargeth all natural and civil relation and the duties thereof absolveth the subjects from allegiance to their lawful and natural Prince warranteth the subjects rebellion or neighbours invasion and usurpation That the Pope may pardâ—n an impiety plâ—…ed before it be perpetrated as he did to the Monk which poysoned King John and the Conspirators in the Gunpowder Treason against King James all which must be most seriously abjured without a Popish mental reservation before this Advocates security That the Pope himself shall never be able to withdraw his clients from their allegiance to His sacred Majestie can he taken or of force are altogether insociable and cannot live with us or any Protestants with the safety of humane society which is more then jars and tumults And if my Lord Roman Catholicks be found to be brats of Babylon and children of Antichrist believing and practicing damnable Doctrines and deceiving unto the destruction of such as drink their poysons from whom the Elect of God having their names written in the Book of Life are required to depart They will not fear to affirm that to give them the least connivance is no less then damnable for our Church knoweth no venial sin and yet acquit themselves from the charge of gall spleen madness turbulency extravagant heat indiscreet and hair-brained zeal and the like epithetes framed out by this Supplicant whose wisdom it had been by softer words and stronger reasons to convince mens judgements and perswade the indulgence of his party in whose behalf he passeth from his passion to offer something to salve the insolvible objection against their defired liberty His first answer is my Lord according to the subtilty of the Man of sin urged with a double Sophism referring us for the demonstration of the Papists sociabilty unto the times and places where and when Popery was predominate and bauking their barbarous cruelty witnessed by the bloody and inhumane persecution of those few Martyrs those dark times afforded he hath the confidence to tell your Lordship That from the Saxons to King Edward the sixth to be a Roman Catholick was never a bar to loyalty obedience to civil Government nor can any deny but that France Spain Italy the Empire and Poland have ever accounted and do still him as the best subject and least dangerous to the civil state who is best affected to that Religion My Lord this Advocate dealeth wisely to appeal to those times and places in which the ignorant devotion to S. Peters Keys or awful dread of S. Pauls sword made Prince themselves most slavish Vassals to the Papacy to take their Crowns at the Popes courtesie and let his holiness kick them off at his will to dance attendance at the gates of Canusium or suffer themselves to be whipt at Canterbury or his Holiness to tread on their Royal necks and give their Crowns to whom he pleaseth in which case they durst not but deem the peoples affection to that power to which themselves swore allegiance to be the best mark of loyalty the very thoughts to the contrary being an herefie worthy the Popes curse and loss of their Crown But my Lord one instance of a Prince fully freed from this Tyrannical yoke would be much more convincing But my Lord this Suppliant is sure a stranger to the base and barbarous usage of the Emperours Henrious the fourth and fifth Fredericus Barbarossa and Fredericus secundus Childericus King of France our own William Rufus King John King Henry the second and others with the commotions perturbations invasions usurpations and rebellions against them and many other Princes made by and upon a blinde obedience of the Roman Catholicks at the command of their holy Father the Pope or thinks he the sound here of never reacht to England or would he have Pipinus Rodulphus Anselm Thomas Becket and the Clergy under Henry the eighth accounted most sociable men and loyal subjects that he can with this confidence affirm That from the Saxons times unto King Edward the fixth to be a Roman Catholick was the best mark of loyalty without doubt he hoped that on the repeal of the Pepal Laws against the Papists the Statute of the submission of the Clergy will meet with cui index expurgatorius and that monument of Roman Catholick disloyalty be quite obliterated My Lord I wonder not so much to observe this person of quality to be
occasioneth them to give it that name of Treason yet if this advocate had pleased to consider the Law he might have seen a proditorious appeal and subjection to and advancement of a forraign power and potentate over and opposite to the Soveraign Majestie of this Kingdom in every Roman Popish Priest and there is the Ratiâ— formalis of the Treason and makes it such quia malum in se as well as quia prohibitum But my Lord that which sticks in the stomack of these Romen Catholicks is the power of which their Priests are deprived He tells your Lordship The Priests were wont here in England to sit in the chair of Government and by their Oracles and Decrees the people of this Land were onely wont to he directed both in Chancery Rolls and Ecclesiastical Courts You may see my Lord to what pitch the Roman Catholicks would screw their desired liberty that the to esse of our Laws may depend on their Priests Anathema the places of trust and honor be by them possessed judgement be by them dispenced and all civil Offices be at their command to commend their sociability by executing the writ de Hereticus comburendis on the bare say of a Priest that this man is an Heretick My Lord all Lawyers that lay away this liberty are strange and irrational and desired to be repealed 2. My Lord the little reason of this Corrector of the reason of our Law is worth observation In his blinde passion he supposeth and suggesteth it to be made treason to be a Priest and manageth all his invectives against the Law as if it were against the name Priest which in its general nature and vulgar acceptation denoteth cui administrator of holy things between God and his people And so we know Moses consecrated a Priest Christ was and is a Priest our Church call Ministers Priests and every true Saint is a Priest and the Law must needs seem unreasonable that shall make it Treason for a man to be a Priest in so large a sense as he by an ignoratio Elenchi renders it but could his heat have admitted him to have cast an eye on the Statute he would have found the Traytors to have been Jesuits Seminary Priests or other Priests made or ordained out of the Realm or in the Realm by any power authority or jurisdiction derived challenged or pretended from the sea of Rome And so the Treason to consist not in their being simple Priests but in their being Roman Priests subjected to and advancing a Forreign Power and Authority above their natural Prince He may my Lord on enquiry finde Priests yea Popish Priests when converted from the Papacy have enjoyed the liberty of Subjects and not been judged Traytors though he profoundly fancieth the Treason to be in the general appellation and as such scolds at the Law as unreasonable and so runs into the third misdemeanor to be observed viz. 3. His inâ—olency in presuming to reproach the renowned Queen Elizabeth as illegitimate and an usurper of the Crown and so charging these Laws to have been the products of her fears and jealousies against Mary Queen of Scots whom he determined to have been the just heir of the Crown all which with a right Roman Catholick spirit he bottometh on the Popes declaring her illegitimate it is indeed true he doth mention our own Acts of Parliaments which did declare her such but my Lord his foundation is the Popes Sentence and Censure otherwise his argument were the same against Queen Mary as against Queen Elizabeth who also was declared illegitimate and he would have seen Acts of Parliament appropriating the Crown to her as well as they had sometime taken it from her My Lord come not the the Roman Catholicks with a very submissive spirit to supplicate their liberty thus to reproach our Princes and Laws and so demanding the repeal of Penal Laws against themselves as a matter due and just But if my Lord tha jealousies of Queen Elizabeth as an Vsurper were the onely reason and cause of those Statutes how was it that these laws did not cease with their cause after King James right heir according to this Advocates account come to the Crown These laws were not onely continued but renewed and rendred more severe as the Catholick insociability manifested by their bloody and barbarous conspiracies against him whom their Pope could not declare illegitimate had constrained My Lord I have made bold to confider the Argumentation of this Advocate for the toleration of Roman Catholicks The remaining part of his Book is but a Rhetorical swada in which there are many words and sentences obnoxious to exception but knowing that your Lordship is more judicious then to be courted by words without weight I will not trouble your Lordship with any observation of them but humbly commit the cause to your grand and pious consideration not doubting but your zeal to the Protestant Religion the interest of our Nation honor of our King and glory of our Church almost ruined by Scismaticks on a suspicion that it would strike hands with Roman Catholicks will prove more fervent then to be extinguished or abated by the water of these false suggestions furious expostulations or fair spoken perswasions and that your Lordship will never engage your self to indulge an interest directly contrary to our Laws Church Religion and Scripture duty In which confidence I commend your Lordship unto the Grace that is able and will establish you to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and rest My Lord Your Lordsships most devoted humble Servant C. D. July 8. 1661. FINIS