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A36836 Declaratory considerations upon the present state of affairs of England by way of supplement.; Short and true account of the several advances the Church of England hath made towards Rome. Supplement Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680. 1679 (1679) Wing D2539; ESTC R1765 11,612 23

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Church of England and for the only true Protestants in Europe which ought to be acknowledged for the holy pure Orthodox and visible Church of Jesus Christ upon the Earth at least which ought to have the right hand of excellency before all the Churches Reformed from Popery to which belong the Succession of Pulpits since the Apostles the purity of Doctrine and holiness of life only for this reason because it possesses the Episcopal Ordination for it is much after this manner that the Doctors Stillingfleet Tillotson Floyd and Mr. Durel speak of it When they invest five or six hundred of the Beneficed Ministers with the name of the Church of England This is indeed no better than a piece of refined fashionable No-sence to affirme that the first draught of Reformation ought to pass for a perfect worke that must admit of no hand to come over it again and give it the last live touches and that a handful of persons in a Corner of the world moved and actuated by such Interests as I am unwilling to name must needs be above all others in Christendome the little flock of Jesus Christ ALSO this opinionative humour of rejecting since the time of KING Edward the sixth all the overtures of going over the reformation again is not an effect neither of the wisdome of Heaven nor even of that of this world and of persons that have but the least reason and common sence who know that it hath been the practise of all ages and of all the successors of the first Legislators who being sensible that those have not been able to foresee in the first Establishing of Laws the inconveniencies which may arise from them are forced many times to repeale some of the first lawes or at least to make some change and alteration of them This is what the Parliaments of England have alwayes done but this is what the Church of England has never been willing to do YOU expect it may be that I should pass from those that approve of my writing to them that condemn it but it would be labour lost to attempt the Cure of their prejudices or the giving them any satisfaction unless they do convince me of a lie or that I have mak'd or disguised by some sinister interpretation the opinions of those great men whom I alledge Unless we can do that I shall remain constant in that opinion that those who condemn my writing are as much under the Tyranny of prejudices as those who speak against my Iugulum causae and my Fasciculus as if they were pernitious pieces that tend to the ruine of the Church of God to the subversion of all good order and which are the production of a person that is moved by an evil spirit or at least that is a seer of contentions and an Enthusiast For these are the Ideas of my person and of my writings quite contrary to those that one of the great men in the Protestant party has conceived both of me and them He has not indeed forbad me to name him but he has not likewise given me the permission to do it so that it will be a very Innocent Action to produce here a fragment of the Letter he wrote to me which is dated from Paris the 28 of March 1679. SIR IT was my happiness to have a little Book written by you and intituled fasciculus c. fall into my hands some weeks ago I read it and when I had done went through it again with an extream pleasure and great advantage I discovered in it important truths which I was I must confess ignorant of until then To do you justice I must acknowledge that it is you who have put the last hand to the Reformation which remained imperfect and unfinished without your generous Successour and which being destitute of your illuminations has not made any progress for this hundred years You are the first that hath discovered the Mystery of Iniquity at the root and bottome and who show to all that will not be longer blinded by interests and prejudices the infallible means to ruine Antichrist and to downfal the Beast Before you had taken the hoodwink from my Eyes I thought Excommunication was as solidly grounded upon the holy Scripture as any of our Articles of Faith especially when I heard our Ministers say with so much assurance in the name and Authority of Jesus Christ I excommunicate c. But I see by the solid and unanswerable refutation that you make from the principal passage upon which they pretend it is strengthened and supported nothing to be more vain than what they alledge to establish that fantasme as you call it truely well I thought Sir it was my duty to testifie my acknowledgements to you and to thank you most heartily for the good Office you have done me Ingenui est pudoris fateri per quos profeceris Assure your self Sir that I will not hide this Talent I have received from you in a Napkin But I will indeavour to the utmost of my power and interest to make known these truths that you have discovered and to gain you Proselites May you alwayes keep firm against the Persecutions c. BUT thought it to be an Action very Innocent to Print the Letter of this great man whilest I do not name him and he is not known by any of my Friends Yet I had not made it publick if my Age of Seventy four years did not convince me that if I should stifle during my Life this clear evidence of my good cause by so eminent an Authority it might in all probability remain in the Grave of silence with me to the Resurrection And my new thoughts by way of an Essay towards an Ecclesiastical History might also run the same risque This consideration hath carried me to add to his Letter the Arguments of all the Chapters of my Book rather for the satisfaction of him whom I find so agreeing with my Sentiments than for that of any other person That so if God gives me any longer time to live he may have farther profit and draw from me those pieces that go to the making up of my History to which he may give a run in the World with greater facility FINIS A NEW ESSAY Towards a TRUE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Which may serve as A KEY TO THE ANNALS OF BARONIUS The Preface Or An IDEA of the BOOK Chap. 1. OF the Origine of Church Power from the time of Jesus Christ and of Saint Paul and of its progress even to the time of the Decretals that it is the true Mystery of Iniquity Chap. 2. A Continuation of the same matter a little more exact even to the Council of Calcedony Chap. 3. A farther History of the Ecclesiastical Power from the Council of Calcedony down to the time of the Introduction of the Decretals Chap. 4. Another Discourse about the same matter that the Decretals have made the Pope the Head of the Ecclesiastical Power and have