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A57744 The late act of the convocation at Oxford examined: or, The obit of prelatique Protestancy: occasioning the conversion of W. R. (sometimes of Exeter Colledge in Oxford) to Catholique union Rowland, William. 1652 (1652) Wing R2075; ESTC R219949 37,064 142

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conditions are required in a Lawfull taking or imposing Oaths You proceede The SECOND ARTICLE OF THE COVENANT First is cannot but affect us with some griefe and amazement to see that ancient forme of Church-Government which wee heartily and as wee hope worthily honour as under which our Religion was at first so orderly without Violence or Tumults and so happily reformed and hath since so long florished with Truth and Peace to the honour and happinesse of our own and the envy and admiration of other Nations not only 1. Endeavoured to be extirpated without any reason offered to our understandings for which it should be thought necessary or but so much as expedient so to doe But also 2. Ranked with Popery Superstition Heresy Schisme and prophanesse which wee unfainedly professe our selves to detest as much as any others whatsoever 3. And that with some intimation also as if that Government were some way or other so contrary to sound Doctrine or the power of Godlinesse that whosoever should not endeavour the extirpation thereof must of necessity partake in other mens sinnes which we cannot yet be perswaded to believe To your first Was not England reformed from Infidelity to Christianity without violence or tumult and so continued till Henry the Eights rupture both in body and minde did it not continue in admiration of all Nations because it never admitted any Heresies was it not endeavored to bee extirpated without any reasons offered to our understanding yet let mee also tell you that your pretended Reformation came not in nor continued without violence At the very first was there not violence offred in the first Parliament which began it in Edw. 6. time what course was then taken in the choice of Parliament men again what violence in keeping out the Bishops who then were necessary Members that the Vote might be carried for suppression of Masse and establishing your Common-Prayer Book And did it not continue by bloud The onely argument used to induce Catholique to adhere to your new Schismaticall Prelacy was that which began and continues the Alcaron which is the Sword or which is more ignominious the Gallowes Yet you live under those Governours who promise not to exercise violence upon Consciences which is your happinesse But if they should make use of your Lawes and argue with you ad hominem that way out of your principles there would be title for cruelties enough yee hare very closely followed the steps of your predecessors the Donatists whose bloudy proxagation of their Heresies St. Hierom in his Treatise against them towards the end of the third Booke shewes So does Orosius also and St. Augustine of the City of God which he dedicated to Marcellinus who was murthered by them God forbid that any Phalaris should put you to Perillus his punishment recorded in Ovid. Et Phalaris tauro violenti memb a Perilli Torruit in felix imbuit auctor vpus What a number of penall Lawes were in your time by your promotion made against tender Consciences and how rigidly put in execution How many tyrannicall Sentences and Censures did you passe in your high Comm ssion court for meer Peccadillo's What Forfeitures and Mulcts were imposed on all such as refused to be present at your adored Service of Common-Prayer which is now become so nauseous to the generality of People that it is not to be heard of in the whole Nation unlesse in some occult or remote Crany and of whose Origin continuation and Exit you may take this as a sure record that it was established by a Parliament on the 29 of May 1549. and was abolish'd on the 26 of Novemb. 1644. by the like authority Thus long did it and your Religion continue without flourishing either to the happinesse of our own or to the envy or admiration of any other Nation But on the contrary is it not most apparent that these and such like your unchristian actions and fanatique Innovations were the onely cause of all our late troubles Hinc illae Lachrymae From this Source hath issued a stream of bloud and a fountain of tears in the late warres Nor can it seem strange that Almighty God should at length unsheath his sword to revenge the innocent You know Haman was hang'd on the Gallowes which he erected for Mardocheus But wee pray that you may finde mercy To the Second Was not Catholike Religion by you called Popery and ranked with Superstation c. and hath it not by your selves to this day been so calumniated amongst the common people that they do yet take it to be really so In so much that one of your learned'st Prelates whose name out of civility I spare for I fight not against persons but causes being asked by a grave gentleman of your Prelatick Church why you did accuse the Church of Rome of such crimes as Superstition and Idolatry which she had suppressed in this Nation and in the whole world as all Histories witness Your Bishop answered ingenuously That this Prelatick Protestancy began with lies and so it must continue Hence this Gentleman took his rise to become Catholike Credidit domus ejus iota and all his Family Let not any man much wonder at this private confession of the Bishop for it is very well consistent with what others have taught in publike Mr. Gregory in his Opuscula page 145. hath these words We make Religion but a politike engine which being supposed the Bishop would not have had much labour to prove his Thesis It 's pretty to observe what strange devises Bishop Bancroft and others used to raise schismes amongst Catholikes as was confessed in Parliament as S. Augustine saith of Julian By this means he thought to destroy the Christian name when out of his envy to the Churches unity whence he had fallen he permitted sacrilegious dissentions to be free from censure You see whence they derived their Machiavelisme but all in vain we all stick to the rock when their sandy foundation failes And question lesse it had fail'd as soon as conceived if the people had not easily been carried away with any though meer appearances of Reformation and the hope of gain by the suppression of religious houses according to that Sparta diu stetit non quod Rex bene imperabat sed quia populus bene parebat You are well read in the history of Perkin Warbeek he had so long lied in personating a King that the Lord Chancellour Bacon saith he did at last verily think himself to be the King And really I do believe you had so long told this untruth of Catholiques that many of you began to believe that we were superstitious indeed your serious manner of speaking would almost make us think so were not the thing so ridiculous that we should be superstitious who onely have destroyed superstition to the astonishment of the world Who could believe that D. Vsher should not blush to preach so impudent an untruth as that Catholiques hold Fornication