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A61423
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The case of the Church of England by law established necessary to be considered in order to a more firm and full settlement of peace both at home and abroad : in a letter to a bishop of the present constitution / by an English Catholick.
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Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.
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1700
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Wing S5423; ESTC R38300
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7,857
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the deceitful Flattery of such as preached up and pretended as much to Loyalty Non-resistance and passive Obedience as any but soon discovered what was in the bottom of those Pretences when there was occasion But admirable is the Providence of God who hath not only given us at last occasion to see the Decitfulness and Treacherousness of those Principles and brought things to that State that neither can King James excuse his Actions but by those Principles which yet he hath special reason to abhor nor King William and the Nation justifie theirs but by †Both the Vsurpation and the Oath of Supremacy seem Heretical Sacrilegious Schismatical and Perjury to cause Flattery in the Clergy subvert the Laws justifie K. James and be a Reproach to the present Government and not excused but aggravated by Qu. Elizabeth's Injunction disowning and disclaiming those and asserting and adhering to those of the true English Government but besides by a new Division and Contention in the Church hath extorted a just Assertion of that Truth with a plain Conviction of the contrary Heresie which few or none before would so much as own or confess The Erastian Heresie you know I mean and the Conviction may be seen in the Abstract But no Conviction tho' never so clear will ever free this Nation from a continual Succession of such a pestiferous Brood till the State it self cast out the accursed thing which that Sacrilegious Treacherous Achan brought into it And such it is indeed for if his Principles be Heresie the Practice in the State is certainly Sacrilege and Sacrilege of no ordinary Nature or degree And how cursed a thing that is may be seen in Sir Henry Spelman's two Treatises one but lately printed Such cursed Fruit proceeding from this Root all may see and many have felt and more may if they take not warning The Authority by which this Reformation was Established as aforesaid was meerly and intirely Lay the Bishops in the House made Speeches against it the Convocation of the Clergy sent up a Remonstrance against it and the Universities declared against it This Authority therefore was incompetent and that Authority which by it was introduced into the Church when the other Bishops were turned out Schismatical and null and besides meerly Political even in its Original as is briefly noted in the Letter to the Vindicator and nothing truly Apostolical in it for that Cranmer had implicitly renounced and disowned and wickedly heretically and treacherously introduced one meerly Political into the Church in the place of it by his * This the History of the Reformation falsly charges upon Bonner who was not so much as Bishop then strange Project of Commissions and the †They both accepted Commissions and were consecrated if at all by such as had Consecrators of Mat. Parker were both Intruders and Commission-Officers and such as the Queen would not make use of in her Coronation tho' she was hard put to it to get any other Nor has this Fundamental Fault ever been rectified tho' there was once a fair Opportunity by a true Arch-Bishop some time resident in the Nation had the Opportunity been wisely improved and the Person treated as his real Dignity and great Learning justly deserved So that you have neither any clear Commission from Christ nor Vnity with the Catholick Church nor Integrity of his Worship nor Authority or Use of his Discipline nor Evidence or any Demonstration of the Presence or Power of his Spirit And in all these the Dissenters seem to be equal with you or in a better and safer Condition and tho' ‖ They betray not the Rights of Christ's Kingdom their Separation is from Schismaticks their Non-observance of Humane Laws for Observance of Divine and justifiable or excusable by the Principles of their Adversaries v. Hammond of Schism c. 2. §. 5 7 guilty of Schism too yet more innocently guilty and more cordial and industrious for promoting the Spirit and Power of Religion in the Nation which may be accepted in Mitigation of the Guilt especially if after notice they proceed cautiously and presume not beyond their Authority and such things as are lawful and commendable in all Christians as Prayer and Instruction of their Neigbours if done in due manner And this I think sufficient for the present to justifie to a Man of Learning and Understanding in these matters both my refusal of your Communion and what I told you I am ready to answer for in my Preface to the Discourse Of prayers for the Dead And if this be not enough more I have to say These things I was willing to have discoursed with your Lordship in private but it seems it was not the Will of God that I should but rather offer them publickly to the Consideration of all Nor do I see any Inconvenience at all in it For if I be mistaken in any thing I shall be glad to be better informed and as concerned and careful to do right to the Truth as any one concerned can desire But if these things be so as I have said certainly they are not to be neglected nor can any Man who has any Sense of his Duty to God or any Love to his Country see it in such a Case and be silent or not so much as give Notice to all and especially to such as are obliged to take care not only of themselves but of the rest also Nor can Your Lordship or any of Your Order be offended at it if it be truth for if so it is in effect but what you your selves ought to do as you will answer it to Almighty God If your Prince and the State be guilty of Sacrilege by Usurping the Sacred Rights of the Church you ought to admonish them to persuade them to oppose and withstand it and not to comply with it for that is to make your selves Partakers in the Sin to betray their Souls and your own too If all be guilty of Schism you ought to consider how * Bp. Bramhell acknowledges Separation from the Catholic Church to be Separation from Christ and all his holy Ordinances and from the Benefit of his Passion and all Hope of Salvation Vindic. c 9 p. 126. v Hammond of Schism c. 1. Sect 5.6 7 8. Stillingfleet of Separation Par. 2. Sect. 27 28. Dodwell of Schism c. 13 14 Abstract c. 4. p. 16. great a Sin that is give Warning advise what is to be done and not conceal so great an Evil either for your own private Interest or for the sake of a Party that is to let them die in their Sin and their Blood be required of you over and besides your own Personal Guilt If the Authority of Christ's Commission be not duly and sufficiently conveyed to you you ought not to pretend to any such thing or to act as if it was that is to counterfeit your Soveraign's Commission to be Impostors and the greatest Cheats and Deceivers that can be And all this is no less a Sin than that great Sin of disowning Christ and his Word being ashamed or afraid to attest it but rather so much greater by how much the Temptation is lesser So that it is a matter which deserves as great Consideration as any in the World and not to be resolved but upon very great and clear Grounds and Reasons And if you your selves will not be sensible of it others ought at least every one for themselves And so I leave it FINIS
The CASE of the Church of England By Law Established Necessary to be considered in Order to a more firm and full Settlement of Peace both at Home and Abroad In a Letter to a Bishop of the present Constitution by an English Catholick My LORD WHEN you desired to discourse with me I was very glad of it for I know none of your Order I should more gladly have discoursed with than your self But my Expectations were greatly disappointed when after I had walked more than five Miles for that purpose you first permitted much of my time to be lost by ordinary Discourse not so much as of any Business and at last as soon as I moved any thing towards it took such occasion to prevent any farther Proceedings in Conference either then or at any time else as looked as if you in truth declined what you before seemed to desire I expected to have received from you the Subject of our Discourse but since you was not pleased to vouchsafe me that Favour I shall to you and for reasons which will appear hereafter to all give a plain Account of what I think may reasonably be expected from me I have from my Youth been disposed to Retirement and yet for all that always so heartily affected to the Service of God and my Country that upon any just Occasion I have been as ready to appear in Publick as any and without any respect to any private Interest This is manifest by what I have Printed since the Revolution not to mention other Matters And soon after I had received my Quietus from that Service as I apprehended it I was by a Secret Conduct of Providence engaged in another which had been much in my Heart for many Years for the more immediate Service of our Great Soveraign and by several Steps unforeseen by any Mortal necessitated to enter into the most Sacred Imployment unless I would desert that Service and let it fall and to proceed from a private Room to a publick Church and from one to another till I and my little Company were brought into the very Heart of the City and then I began to be more sensible of the Divine Hand in it and what our Business was viz. to bear a Publick but tacit Testimony against the Corruptions and Neglect of the most Solemn part of the Christian Worship And that I continued for above Two Years daily with a Liturgy restored in the principal Matters to the Primitive Integrity which I printed and presented to the Arch Bishop and Bishop of London and others and let it be published and in the Preface gave sufficient Admonition of those Faults I have mentioned But when I found it so neglected by those who were most obliged to take Notice of it I began to fear it might be but the Exposing of so Sacred a thing to Contempt if we continued in that publick manner yet did not think fit to desert that Post till I had either a Prohibition to proceed or an Invitation to depart to some other Station and such I soon had a very extraordinary one to a very convenient Retirement After I came thither the Scandals I had before received from the Unfaithfulness Tepedity and Unconcernedness of such as of all men I thought most obliged to take Care of the Service of God and the Peace and Welfare of the Nation were so often by Letters I received from London recalled to my Remembrance that at last I resolved upon a farther and more exact Review of what is called the Reformation which seems to have been the special Business of that Retirement When I had satisfied my self in that matter I gave a plain Account of the things of most Importance both to the State and to the Church which I had observed to Two of His Majesty's Privy-Council and resolved for my self to do what I could to extricate my self out of all that Guilt and Wickedness I found this Nation involved in and to make my own Cause good whatever others would do And for that purpose I could not think of any Expedient more proper than to draw up a plain Profession of my Faith and to make an Offer thereof and of Communion to the next Catholick Church which I take to be that of France and a little kind of Overture I then made of it to a private Friend in London When I had done this we soon had Occasion to think of removing thence and upon our Removal Opportunity to make some stay at Oxford and to peruse what Books and Manuscripts I thought fit there and when I had done that a fair Invitation to come nearer London And then I thought fit to write to the Bishop of the Diocess whence I came and where I was concerned to the Bishop of the Diocess to which I came and to the Arch-Bishop of the Province concerning these matters who were all I thought my self obliged to for any account of what I did but I desired an Opportunity to represent them to a Synod For I could not satisfie my self to secure my own Interest unless I did what I could for the Service of my Countrey also especially since we have a Peace so happily concluded by so many States without any great Danger of any thing than what is like to be revived by Dissentions in the Church and the secret Guilt of Sacrilege and Schism both in this and other Nations And therefore when I found no hopes of any Opportunity of representing these matters before the Church Collective in a Synod there was no other way for me of doing it at all but before the Church Diffusive by the Press And for divers Reasons I thought nothing more proper to begin with than a Discourse of Prayers for the Dead with a Preface concerning the Necessity and Advantage of a Review of these matters by the State since the present Governours of the Church would not trouble themselves about them And this my Lord I hope will fully answer part of your mistake concerning me I shall next tell you plainly What were the Scandals which principally moved me to this Review so far as is sufficient for my purpose and then What were the principal Matters which I observed in it and think most necessary for a farther Consideration at present Of those Scandals there is one of which I have long since and often complained both in private and publick but with so little Success as doth not a little aggravate the Sin and Scandal to me It is that having so great Encouragement for Learning such Numbers of Learned Men such Abundance of Shipping and all Necessaries such Commerce Footing and Plantations in so many Foreign Parts among Infidels there hath been no Care taken by the Governours of this Reformed Church for the Propagation of Religion among the Infidels or the Promotion of sincere Piety in our own Plantations but instead of sending Missioners of the Gospel suffering them to be filled with the Ministers of Satan the most scandalous People