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A67134
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A view of the face unmasked, or, An answer to a scandalous pamphlet published by divers ministers and entituled The common prayer book unmasked wherein the lawfulness of using that book is maintained ... : whereunto are added also some arguments for the retaining of that book in our Church ... / by Sam. Wotton ...
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Wotton, Sam. (Samuel)
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1661
(1661)
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Wing W3657; ESTC R34766
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45,602
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60
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How did the whole Nation flourish in piety peace and prosperity under her Government ever since her Raign began during the time of it and since the end of it no Nation in the Christian world hath received more and more miraculous mercies and favors from Gods hand then our Nation We have abounded in honor glory and estimation abroad encreased abundanâ—ly in wealth learning and knowledge at home We have hâ—d as excellent and powerful preaching and as frequent as learned and pious books written as any place in the world We have had such uniformity and decency in the worship and service of God as no Church in Christendom more till of late dâ—yes wherein this book and our Bishops and Church Government by them have been cryed down and thrust by force and violence against all reason conscience and Laws of God and man out of their places and our Church during which time of their exiâ—e what treasons rebellions murder and all horrible acts of prophanness and abominable impiety have abounded in the Land no tongue can express What strange Sects have risen how hath Popery increased how insolency and ignorance under pretence of new light hath overspread a great part of the Land woful experience hath shewed more then I am able to express These effects may justly be imputed to the want of Bishops and a Set form of divine worship amongst us for immediately upon the abolition of them they began to grow and encreased all the time of their much lamented absence and now through the great mercy of God since the restoring of them they are much abated and decayed daily and by the continuance of them now again amongst us in some reasonable time if without interruption or disturbance it please the Lord of his infinit goodness to continue this blessing to us we doubt not by the grâ—ce of God the falling down or vanishing away of all these Sects again The book being an especial help to the simple and ignorant in the worship and service of God and the authority of the Bishops an approved and effectual means to keep under the insolency and perversness of willful disturbers of the Churches peace which happiness that we may enjoyn again as we have formerly had it as we are daily to beg and crave at the hands of Almighty God with earnest and uncessant prayers so do we humbly for the conclusion of this Treatise desire of his sacred Majesty and the most reverend Fathers in God the Lords Arch-Bishops the right reverend Fathers in God the Lords Bishops of our Church by his Majesty chiefly intrusted in this business and by the Law of God and of this chiefly with the instructing and teaching of his people and governing his Church that amending whatsoever in their wisdom they see fit for the glory of God the good of this Church of England in general and the satisfactions of the minds desires and consciences of the peaceable and weak but faithful members thereof they would still continue our Liturgy which we have had so long among us and so happily flourished under and with which God of his mercy grant that this Church and State may still flourish and prosper to the end of the world Amen May 2. 1661. A Collection of some choice Expressions of the Equity Charity Sobriety and Loyalty the four Virgin Daughters of the unspotted Piety of these unknown Unmaskers of our Common Prayer Book 1. THe Service Book is evinced to be a rank Impostor in Gods worship and a violent intruder into the house of God To the Reader Pag. 1. 2. The said Book is called The overwhelming storm of the purity of worship Chap. 1. p. 1. 3. It is called A Superstitious and Popish Liturgy ibid. 4. If our Liturgy be not a Mass of Superstition and Superstitious Ceremonies we know not what Superstition is p. 3. 5. Kneeling at the Communion is said to be the staff and strength of that abominable Idol the Breaden God ibid. 6. Our Service-Book is called The Mother of that Hydra of the Scotish Liturgy and the yong Dragon in that Nation and the Mass-Book the Mother of our and theirs too ibid. 7. Except our Liturgy had been full of Serpents it could not have hatched the Dragon that was sent into Scotland ibid. 8. The Superstitions of this Book are such and so many that we may apply that saying That it is not onely hurtful and dangerous but cursed and execrable P. 4. 9. Their Liturgy that is the Papists is the very Lethargy of worship and what difference between ours and theirs Truly nothing but a pair sheers betwixt them and putting ours in a coat of another tongue Chap. 2. p. 5. 10. What reason is there that we should groan under the burden of a Liturgy borne in upon us under the name and nature of a Mass which is nothing but a mass of Idolatry and an Idol of abomination ibid. 11. The Service-Book is the main engine it is the saddle and we the asses c. Page 6. from the middle to the end 12. Though Ave Maria be not actually in it namely in our Liturgy yet if purpose had holden it was more then in a fair possibility to have been the head-corner stone of the Liturgy Chap. 3. p. 8. 13. This Symbolization of Papists and Prelate-men in the name and nature of Mass and Liturgy discovers how they conspire against the truth and those who desire to worship God in spirit and truth P. 10. 14. If this our Liturgy were the true worship of God the Papists and the Prelatical crue would never endure it but would stone tear in pieces imprison burn banish and kill with all manner of cruelty as they do and have done those that worship God according to his will ibid. 15. They must bear false witness in proclaiming under their hands by subscription that this stinking puddle is the River of God when indeed it is the Euphrates of Babylon Ibidem to the end and almost to the middle of P. 11. 16. If the Altars now er â—cted were of God they would be an abemination to the Prelates and their faction ibid. 17. It was great incogitancy to speak the least in our Reformers in King Edward's days to take a Monk from among the Canaanites and putting a coat of English cloth upon it to represent it being an unclean beast as a service to the Lord. It is no better truly then the excommunicate thing P. 16. 18. To cause Ministers to subscribe to it is no less then treason against the high and mighty God Châ—p 4. p. 22 23. 19. That Jewish Popish Institution of Churching-women called Purification and that bastâ—rdly piece of Confirmation P. 25. 20. The Letany is not a stump or limb of Dagon but the head of the Mass-Book Chap 5. p 26. 21. Of this it may be truly said as one said of the Pharisees sin thaâ— it was either the sin against the Holy Ghost or else very nigh to it so the Letany
A View of the Face Vnmasked OR AN ANSVVER TO A Scandalous Pamphlet published by divers Ministers and Entituled The Common Prayer-Book Vnmasked Wherein the lawfulness of using that Book is maintained by Answering their Five as they boast undeniable Arguments brought against it Whereunto are added also some Arguments for the retaining of that Book in our Church from the same heads whereby they plead against it namely From The Name of it The Original of it The Matter contained in it The Manner of using it The Effects of it upon the whole Land By Sam. Wotton D. D. sometime Fellow of Kings Colledge in Cambridge LONDON Printed by Tho. Newcomb 166â— TO THE Impartial Reader Christian Reader THough I have all my life time hitherto declined to shew my self any ways in this kind yet now in my last dayes I can no longer keep my self out of the over-burdened Press For having seen this Book not only publickly sold in Westminster-Hall but also reprinted without controll and no answer that I can hear of yet made to it I thought it better to make this brief Answer thereto then to let it seduce and abuse so many people as might be hurt by it if it should pass for such an unanswerable peice as it is pretended to be I have therefore set down all their arguments and given plain and direct answers to them their vain extravagancy and most uncivil railings I have either wholly passed over or very lightly sometime touched upon them that I might neither too much enlarge my Book nor write in a stile so contrary to my natural disposition and so unfitting my quality and profession First then in answer to their Epistle to the Reader they tell us there that Out of a respect to the glory of God which is a God that will be worshipped in spirit and truth as also with a desire of the Readers eternal good they present this Treatise To which I say also that out of a respect to the glory of God which is not a God of confusion but of peace and so 1 Cor. 14. 33. of order without which there is nothing but confusion and no true peace as also out of a tender care of the honour and glory of the Church of England and lastly out of a desire of thy good that thou mayest not be misled by faction ignorance and blind zeal I present unto thee this Answer to their book set forth in â—â—ew against the Common-Prayer-Book but in deed and truth against the Church of England as by this answer will appear Secondly they tell us That this Treatise was formerly penned by some eminent Orthodox Divines late Non-conformists wherein are solid arguments Concerning which vain glorious boast for eminency how much soever I fall short of them they being many and I but one yet for Orthodoxness let any man judge of their writing and my answer to whom that title doth best belong and for their last title of late Non-conformists I am more troubled to understand what they aim at by it then to answer it for if they be still Non-conformists why do they prefix that word late as implying that now they are not so and if they be no longer such why or how then do they own such a book now To that therefore I say no more but hope that my title of present conformity shall be as well accepted by the indifferent Reader as theirs of late or present difformity Thirdly they say That three sorts of Readers shall be helped by this Book the doubtful shall be fully resolved the users of the Common Prayer Book shall be brought off and the refusers of it encouraged not onely because Gods people but God himself mislikes it To this I rejoyn that those three sorts of people shall by my answer be more profited then by their accusation for the first sort the doubtful may be hereby resolved to use it the second sort which use it shall be confirmed in their conformity and obedience the third may be either changed or ashamed not onely because humane authority does directly but Divine authority also consequently command it by enjoyning us to obey the powers set over us Fourthly they press the Covenant as an unaswerable argument against the book To which I answer that the Covenant is nothing at all against our Common Prayer Book for we shall plainly shew when we come to the motive that neither they which for fear of present ruine did in some sort seem to joyn in that Covenant by Tyranuy imposed on them nor they which through ignorance or weakness of judgement did easily and willingly yeild to it are in any sort now bound thereby to reject the Common Prayer Book Lastly they tell us That their book will inform us of the truth and if the truth as the Scripture saith make us free we shall be free indeed To this I say that my answer truely performing that which they onely promise shall bring us out of the darkeness of error in this point into the light of truth that being in the light we mâ—y as the Scripture speaks walk as children of the light that is in obedience to God by obeying our Governors which are the Ministers of God for our wealth And this freedom of ours does in no sort come behind Rom. 13. 4. that of theirs for hereby we are the servants of God whose service as with our book in our daily Collect we confess is perfect freedom This freedom we shall ever pray for but freedom from government discipline order decency or whatsoever other freedom in that kind they mean we neither desire our selves nor as we hope shall they ever attain to that most of all desire it So desiring thee equal Reader to weigh their bare arguments with my plain answers and to let their railings revilings trouble thy head no more then they have done my pen I commit thee to Gods blessing in this and all thy Christian endeavors and rest Thine in the Lord S. Wotton A View of the Face Unmasked CHAP. I. To the Preface HEre they begin with a mentioning of Loyalty telling us That As Loyalty is the very Fortress of Policy so pure Religion is the Fountain and Root of Loyalty yea Equity Charity Sobriety and Loyalty are the Virgin-Daughters of unspotted Piety Had they as much Loyalty in their hearts as in their mouths never would they have presumed now especially in these days to reprint this Pamphlet so bitterly and sordidly inveighing against a Book by Law and Authority set forth so long ago and now allowed by His Royal Majesty and constantly read before Him in His Sacred Chappel But as the Lord said of the Jews so may the King of these They have Loyalty and Obedience in their Isai 29. 23. mouths but in their actions they are far from it And if as they tell us Pure and undefiled Religion be the Fountain of Loyalty and Equity Charity Sobriety and Loyalty be the Virgin-Daughters of unspotted