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A47911
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Remarks on the growth and progress of non-conformity
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L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing L1296; ESTC R7094
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33,007
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58
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their froward hearts and 't is the Rod of Correction must fetch it out The Non-conformity-Faction being always observed to have this Hydropical humour of increasing by being indulg'd which makes them just as fit to be indulg'd as a desperate Dropsie which is exasperated by mitigations But the unreasonableness of Non-conformists Plea for Toleration and complaints of Sufferings in being restrained will sufficiently appear by considering distinctly the Persons suffering and the Things suffered The Persons suffering are 1. Such who at the same time revile the Government reproach and expose their Governours managing their pretence of Conscience in such an invective way as makes their complaints and clamours more like matter of superiority than of scruple 2. They are such as have kept days of Prayer and Thanksgiving for Victories over the King have preached the People into Rebellion against him have preached from him his Arms and Money Laws and Credit Liberty and Life and in the most solemn manner have Justified all when they have done and after this endeavoured all they could to keep this present King out of his Throne That Mr. Baxter's Holy Commonwealth was wrote to that very end and purpose will appear to any that compares the time of his publishing it which his Book was wrote as he says 〈◊〉 to satisfie the demands and doubts of which was the Year 1659. when the grand point in doubt was whether the King should be restored or no. He that compares this with those three Theseses 145 146 147. where he hints that the King was justly dispossessed as by a lawful War that being conquered by the People they were not obliged to restore him nay though he had been dispossessed unjustly yet it was not the duty of Subjects to seek his restitution I say these things compared with that vital circumstance viz. the time of writing it make it evident that the design of it was only this to keep out the King But 2. The Unreasonableness of Non-conformists Plea for Toleration and complaint of Sufferings will further appear by considering the things suffered Consider it in the Comparison and in it self 1. In comparison of what the Conforming Clergy suffered under them Their sufferings in the Usurpation times will appear to be little less than those of the Spanish Inquisition or the Marian Persecution to any that reads but 1. the Bill of Mortality of the Clergy of London wherein we have account of 115 turned out of their Livings Plundered of their Goods their Wives and Children sent a begging whereof above 40 were Doctors in Divinity 20 imprisoned in London and the Ships 25 fled to escape imprisonment 22 died with grief in Prisons and remote places The Protestants Remonstrance recounts many more alike sufferers in the Country both which together shew that there were more suffered by Ejecting Sequestring and barbarous plundering by the Presbyterians in three Years time then did by the Papists in all Queen Maries Reign But 2. Consider what their suffering is in it self and it will appear to be little else but a self-silencing meerly because they cannot get priviledge above the peaceable and loyal Sons of the Church I call it a self-silencing because all that the Law doth is to hold forth one common rule indifferently to all every man hath the conditions of his Freedom tendered him which are such as themselves have for the most part acquitted from all intrinsick turpitude or sin and he that will not comply with these conditions siilences himself beside 't is not the Man that is silenced neither but onely this or that irregular Practice or Opinion which the Magistrate seeing insuperable necessity for hath authority from God to regulate and restrain Moreover their Plea in this matter is no more than what Dissenters of all sorts may use so that if Rulers may be judge they are to be suppressed if the People must be judge then Papists Quakers c. must be tolerated also And such Liberty saith Mr. Baxter in matters of Worship and Faith is the way to set up Popery in the Land But let Non-Conformists Scruples be what they will if it seem good to our Rulers to put the restraint upon them I humbly recommend to them that good advice of Mr. Baxter See to this my Brethren saith he that none of you suffer as an evil-doer or as a busie-body in other mens matters as a resister of the commands of lawful Authority as ungrateful to those that have been instruments of our good as evil speakers against dignities as opposers of the discipline and ordinances of Christ as scornful revilers of your Christian Brethren as reproachers of a laborious and judicious Ministry Saints Rest. p. 131. examining well whether the grounds and reasons of their sufferings be not the same as that of Popish Priests and Jesuites viz. not their religious Principle but their seditious Practice encouraging People to tumultuate and rebel by rendering the Government and Governours odious by teaching as Mr. Baxter doth in his Plea for Peace that 't is not in the power of Princes to forbid Ministers preaching as much as to say 't is lawful to resist the King's Authority in defence of the Conventicle 2. Grindallizing A second thing that promotes the interest and increase of Separation is Grindallizing By Grindallizers I mean the Conforming Non-conformists or rather such as are Conformists in their Profession Half-Conformists in their practice Non-conformists in their judgment like the old Gnostick-Separatists which the Apostle calls double minded men or like the Sinner in Eccl. 2. 13. that looks two manner of ways or like the Haven in Creet Acts 27. 12. that bows and bends to the South and to the North to the Church of England and to the Kirk of Scotland as interest and opportunity shall incline These are they which down with all Oaths and Subscriptions required though what they swallow whole in their Subscriptions they mince and mangle in their practice they conform to all seemingly but hypocritically mangle the Common-Prayer handle the Surplice gently plow socunningly with their Ox and Ass together carry it so cunningly that they can scarce be known but per modum opinionis by their open compliances with the Enemies of the Church by their Gallionism in defending the Orders and Ceremonies of the Church and other matters of Conformity which require their proportion of Zeal and Resolution by their hearing with patience and unconcernedness the interest honour and peace of the Church run down by swaggering Sectaries by their talking Conformity and Nonconformity with such compassionate and serious innuendo's as may sufficiently signifie their favourable opinion of if not good will to their Cause by their defending the popular Election of Bishops by ambiguously representing the separation as if it were no Schism by their writing fraudulent Pleas for the Non-conformists by endeavouring to acquit the Presbyterians and Independents of the King's Murder and in statu quo by their Votes in chusing ParlJam nts
REMARKS ON THE GROWTH AND PROGRESS OF Non-Conformity The Fathers seem to call those Hereticks who separated or made divisions in the Church though the Errour they maintained were very small See Mr. Baxter's Infants Church membership his Answer to Mr. Tombs's Valedictory Oration at Bewdly p. 169. LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in St. Pauls Church-yard 1682. THE INTRODUCTION IF Aegles the Champion that was dumb all his life before had the strings of his Tongue loosed that he spake for ever after to see the deceit that was at the sacred Exercises in Samos 't is certainly enough to amaze us to see the greatest disturbers of the Churches Peace yet talk so much of Love and Holiness terms of Union and ways of Concord Pleas for Peace and Cures of Church-divisions as the Provincial of the Protestant Schismaticks doth to see them become as Fire-brands in the Church that were ordained for saving Lights and as Trumpets to sound Martial alarms that were designed for Retreats to popular Furies to see pretended Holiness a Cover to the deformity of Sedition and Innovation and the most barbarous Villanies set on the Score of Religion and Reformation to see those that to remove him from evil Counsellors have murder'd their lawful Sovereign yet to startle at the use of a Ceremony like a Capuchin at the sight of Money to see these still hunting upon the File insinuating the vilest abominations in shew for the publick good abhorring Idols yet committing Sacriledge espying Moths yet winking at Beams crying down the Whore of Babylon when they mean nothing but the overthrow of Episcopacy in a word pretending nothing but Piety and Peace when intending nothing but Schism and Sedition and by the help of these holy Guises as our Royal Martyr called them to come to such a summity of seditious insolence that if one offer a fight with these Beasts of Ephesus in contradiction to their peevish Faction as one merrily observed they presently play the Duke of Anjou's Cow that bedaub'd the fingers of any that offer'd to pull her back by the tail they make him the very Butt of the most infamous defamations that the twisted malice and subtilty of Earth and Hell can devise Now one would think this enough to make a dumb Ass speak in reproving the insolencies and dotages of such Prophets who run thus in the ways of Balaam to curse a Church and People that the Lord hath blessed At least 't is enough to put any serious person on enquiry into the causes of these honest religious Villanies as Seneca calls prospering Wickedness and how such a pernicious Faction could arrive to such a pitch of Reputation and Insolence The Enquirer will find these following means among others regardable REMARKS ON Non-Conformity c 1. Toleration and Indulgence HE is much a Stranger to Non-Conformity that knows not how much Connivance and Indulgence have conduced to its Increase and how necessary are the coërcive means to the safe suppress of that dangerous Faction The first Instance I assign for this is in Queen Elizabeths tolerating the French Church to be setled in London upon Calvin's Principle in 1560. Calvin having solicited Bishop Grindal upon the impetration of the Bishop the Queen assigned to the French Exiles the Church of St. Anthony with liberty to erect the Genevian Discipline and set up a Form of Prayer which had no conformity with the English Liturgy which proved in the event a design'd expedient of Calvin's for the advancing of Presbytery in the room of Episcopacy Upon this Toleration their numbers so increased that in 1568. they broke out into open Schism chusing to meet in Barns and Fields rather than in Churches with their Brethren as formerly teaching that it was impious to hold any correspondence with the conforming Churches Upon this very occasion viz. the Queens toleration and particularly her indulging them the liberty of the Genevian Discipline within eight years time their numbers so increased and their insolence also that the Queen plainly saw as her own words were that such were the restless spirits of that factious People that no quiet was to be expected from them till they were utterly suppressed In order to which she calls a ParlJam nt in 1592. wherein strict Laws were enacted against them and executed accordingly Barrow Penry and Burchet were hanged for such their Non-conformity-principles and practices as were treasonable And by these sharp Laws made against them and some severe executions done on them the Ringleaders of them were humbled the whole body of them brought to a good measure of quietness which these wholsom severities kept them in till the end of the Queens reign and in all probability as a late Writer observes they might have been for ever suppressed and kept quiet had K. James at first held the reins with that strict hand that Queen Elizabeth did before him but for want of that they soon grew bold fell a petitioning for Reformation of sundry Ceremonies and Abuses viz. Cross at Baptism Bowing at the name of Jesus Surplice c. which occasioned the Conference at Hampton-Court where the defence made for their Cause was so mean that the King turning his head to some of the Lords expressed himself thus If this be all they have to say I 'le make them conform or I 'le hurry them out of the Land or somewhat worse This Conference being in February the next Month produced the Kings Proclamation wherein he strictly enjoyns Conformity admonisheth all his Subjects never after to expect alteration in the Form of God's publick Service then established Accordingly the Laws were put in execution without sparing Non-Conformists or Half-Conformists and by this they were reduced to that quiet state again that he found them in when first come to the Crown till the Gunpowder Treason at which time they began to be very bold and busie the King being terrified with the apprehension of so great a danger turn'd all his thoughts upon the Papists and so let the Non-Conformists take breath and regain some strength And as their custom ever was to fish in troubled Waters prodigious Lies and Stories still finding best entertainment in troublesome times quia tutius finguntur facilius creduntur says Livy Therefore upon the occasion of this horrid Plot the Gun-powder Treason their next expedient was upon discovery of this Plot to alarm the Court and Country with the fears of Popery and of new dangers from the Papists to exert the greatest zeal for the Reformed Religion for preserving their Liberties and Priviledges against the incroachments of the Court and by this very means the Reins being loosed to them on the occasion of the Plot they drew much people to them strengthened much their Faction and by degrees made a Party in the House of Commons who at last came to that height that the King could do little in ParlJam nt without applying himself to that popular Faction and by