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cause_n	church_n	king_n	law_n	3,272	5	4.8232	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41042	Seasonable advice to Protestants shewing the necessity of maintaining the established religion in opposition to popery / by Dr. Fell ...	Fell, John, 1625-1686.	1688 (1688)	Wing F620; ESTC R6938	21,116	40

the Originals of Scripture when those that governed were so jealous of it that they would not suffer any Translation but the Latine which was overgrown the mean while as they now confess with many thousands of Corruptions III. Having considered the Obligation we have to the Religion we profess it may be seasonable next to reflect on the Religion to which we are invited We are invited to one that recals us to the Idolatrous practice of the heathen World to pray unto our fellow Creatures canonized to Saints and Heroes to worship Images and fall down to the stock of a tree Nay to the worshiping of the consecrated host which by the confession of Coster the Jesuite and Some others is a more stupid Idolatry than the worst of the Heathens were ever guilty of in case Transubstantiation cannot be made out Now that Transubstantiation is not real we have all the evidence that we are capable of the testimony of our reason and our senses The absurd and monstrous consequences of that Doctrine will fill Volumes a great part of which are with great truth and justice drawn together by Dr. Brevint in his late Tract entituled The Depth and Mistery of the Roman Mas. We are invited to a Religion that takes from us half the Sacrament of the Eucharist notwithstanding the Institution of Christ in express words and notwithstanding the practice of the Primitive Church to the contrary We are invited to a Church that revives the Heathen Persecution of taking away our Bibles and would involve every Lay-man in the guilt of being a Traditor the next step in the account of the Primitive Church to Apostacy from the Christian Faith. We are invited to a Church that as it takes away the Scriptures and half the Communion robs us likewise of the benefit of the Publick Prayers putting the Offices in an unknown Tongue insomuch that when about thirteen years ago some of the Prelates of the Church of France had taken care to translate the Liturgy and Scripture into the vulgar Tongue Pope Alexander the seventh damns the Attempt and under pain of Excommunication commands all persons to bring in their Books to be publickly burnt We are tempted to a religion which contrary to the command of trying all things and holding fast that which is good and paying to God a reasonable service enjoyns an implicite Faith and blind Obedience to a Religion that instead of the guidance of the Word of God sets up an infallible Judge and Arbitrator of all Doctrines the Pope of Rome Which instead of the faith once delivered to the Saints adds new Articles of Faith which instead of that one propitiation made by Christ and the condition thereof Faith and Repentance sets remission of sins upon quite other terms and proposes that gift of God to be bought with Money in the vile Market of Indulgences for instance Sacriledge is valued at seven grosses Incest at five Simony seven Perjury six Murder five and so on in the Tax of the Apostolic Chancery We are invited to a Church where we must be Schismatics that we may be Catholics and adhere to the Roman in opposition to all other that is to the Catholic Church 'T were endless by retail to reckon up the Errors and the Guilts to which we are invited the fond ridiculous Rites the superstitious burthensom and heathenish Ceremonies the Exorcisms and Conjurations the Blasphemies and forged Miracles Cheats and pious Frauds the Lies and Stories stupid and impossible as those of Amadis de Gaul the Knight of the Sun or the Seven Champions witness the Golden Legend the Lives of the Saints of S. Francis Bruno S. Dominick and infinite others or if we have a mind to a Romance of our own the long Tale of a Tub which Father Serenus Cressy has lately put out borrowed from Father Alford the improbable that is the greater Miracles as he tells us being omitted because of the unbelief of the Heretics and yet enow are left to weary the credulity of the most sanguine Catholic Wherein also as he tells us we may see the Faith of our Forefathers and truly we have great reason to thank him for the prospect which as he represents it gives us strong inducements in so unequal a competition to retein our own Notwithstanding all that has been said there are a sort of pacific Writers who represent the Doctrines of the Church of Rome under a fairer light and would have us believe they have a better meaning than is usually suggested And God forbid that we should take things by the worst handle or make that breach wider whose closure we should endeavour to make up with a zeal equal to that of the gallant Roman who threw himself on behalf of his Country into the gaping Gulf. Indeed no price can be too great for Peace but only Truth the which we may not part with for all the tempting charms of Charity and Love and God knows in the present case 't is evident that the excuses which are fram'd in the Romanists behalf are short and frivolous nor besides can any man be esteem'd a Roman Catholic by admitting the Doctrines of that Church in his own private or some more probable Doctors but in the public sense And had these undertakers in the Catholic Cause power to dispense therein according to that Candor which many of them make shew of we might attend to what is said but we are well assur'd that all these fair words can signifie nothing but are merely a bait and snare laid to draw in the easie Proselyte for when he 's reconcil'd and brought into the bosom of the Church these painted shews are presently washt off and all concessions immediately retracted the Convert must then learn the Colliers Creed believe as the Church believes and St. Peter's Key which threw the gate open to admit into the Church will shut the Prisoner in and the Child which had a piece of money given him to keep him quiet shall soon after have it call'd for back again and be aw'd with the rod if he repine or murmur So that 't will be a frivolous Project to talk of a Reconcilement with the Church of Rome till she first conform herself to Truth and a Conviction and much more a Reformation must here be impossible where the grossest Errors are joyn'd with an Assurance of being free from any nay a Persuasion of being infallible IV. The Motive which deserves the next place is the Safety of the King's Person and the Prerogative of the Crown which hath no higher or more necessary appendent than his Supremacy in his Dominions in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Secular according to the powers invested in the Jewish King under the Law and exercised by the first Christian Emperours 'T is obviously known how destructive both to itself and the Community is the Partnership of Regal Power but this must be

Seasonable Advice TO PROTESTANTS SHEWING The Necessity of Maintaining THE Established Religion In Opposition to POPERY By Dr. Fell late Lord Bishop of OXFORD LONDON Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun at the VVest-end of St. Paul's Church-yard 1688. A Seasonable DISCOURSE SHEWING The NECESSITY of Maintaining THE Established RELIGION In Opposition to POPERY IT is not be doubted but that the Papists against whom the Penal Laws were most sharp are and will be watchful to improve to their utmost advantage His Majesties Declaration of Indulgence wherein he grants Liberty to all sorts of Dissenters from the Church of England to exercise their Religions and suspends the Execution of the Penal Laws in force against them They will now so much the more industriously set themselves to seduce Protestants since they may securely own and defend their Perswasions and even their Priests openly act in all parts their Function which was before no less than Capital in any of His Majesties Subjects If the industry we expect from them meet not with a proportionable zeal in all true Protestants it will not he hard to conjecture what the Success will be when the Attaque is vigorous and industrious and the Defence faint and negligent And therefore I think it cannot be unseasonable to offer a few Motives to the stirring up the zeal and awakening the prudence of all such Protestants as fear God and love the King the Church or themselves as well as to arm them with some Arguments for their own confirmation in the grounds of Protestancy in opposition to Popery II. The first Consideration shall be that of Duty to Almighty God who has made us Members of a Christian Church in which we may assuredly find Salvation if we continue in it and live according to its Rules and Precepts This Christian Church our holy Mother has no other Rule of Faith and Practice than the Holy Scripture of which when less was written than we have now in our hands S. Paul said then they were able to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus It receives for Canonical Scripture neither less nor more than those Books of whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church yielding herein as much to Universal Tradition as any Church in the world much more than the Roman does who obtrudes her particular Dictates and most notorious Innovations for the Fundamentals of the Catholic Faith. It professes the same Faith and no more than what all Christians have made the Badge and Symbol of their Profession namely that which is briefly compris'd in the Apostles Creed explain'd in those others which are called the Nicene and Athanasian and proved by the Holy-Scriptures taken in that sense which is evident in the Text to any indifferent judgment and approved by the consent of the Universal Church the Decrees of the first General Councils and Writings of the Fathers We are Members of a Church where are used the same Sacraments which Christ expresly left in his Church and no other We worship the only God as we are taught to believe in him and no other Our Administration of this Worship and of these Sacraments is in Language understood by all those that are concerned in them being performed with such Rites as are agreeable to the Word of God being for Decency and Order and we use them not as necessary in themselves but in obedience to that Authority which God has given to every particular Church over its own Members Our Discipline likewise is according to the Scripture Rule and Primitive Patterns as far as the loosness of this Age will bear and if this has weakned the Discipline of our Church we believe it has the same effect even in those of the Roman Communion and had no less in the Church of Corinth in the Apostles times And for the Persons who are employed in the Ministry of Gods Worship and Sacraments and in the feeding and governing of the Flock of Christ they are lawfully called to their Office and Ministry and are consecrated and ordained according to the Scriptures and Canons of the Universal Church and we shew the Succession of our Bishops to the Apostles of Christ as fully as it can be shewn in any other Church at this day Lastly We are members of a Church which above all other Constitutions in the Christian World enforces the great duties of obedience and submission to the Magistrate and teaches to be subject not only for Wrath but Conscience sake In all these respects our Church holds a Communion with all true Churches of Christ that are or have been in the World and is together with them a true Member of that holy Catholic Apostolic Church which was from the beginning and will be to the end As we pass not severe censures on other Churches though exceedingly erroneous and are for that charity unworthily repaid by the most criminal that of Rome So are we excommunicated by none that we know of but Her The Pope herein dealing with us as he does with all other Christians in the World namely with most of the European Churches and in other parts except those few whom he has gained of late by his Missionaries The common Cause for which we suffer is nothing else but the defence of the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and of that Liberty wherewith Christ has made us free against those additional Articles which he would intrude into the one and thar Anti-christian Yoke which he would impose on the other The difference between our case and that of our fellow Christians who suffer with us is only this that they are shut out from Heaven as far as the Popes Censures can do it for they know not what many of them even Millions in the remoter parts having never so much as heard of him or his pretensions whereas we konw them too well by woful Experience It is not so much more than an hundred years since that our Ancestors were under his Tyranny which as their Fathers had insensibly drawn upon themselves by their deference to the See of Rome from whence the Saxons had partly their Conversion so they having endured it as long as they were able after many fruitless endeavours to make it tolerable at last with one consent threw the Yoke off their necks Our Church being thus freed from the Usurpations of Rome by them who were deeply immersed in the errors and corruptions of it the best use they could make of their liberty was this to restore the primitive purity of the Christian Faith and Worship which ignorance and interest had fatally depraved Indeed 't was morally impossible that they should pass untained through so many Ages of darkness when the Popes given up to profligate vice seem'd to drive on no other design but for Wealth and Dominion when scarce any in their Communion understood