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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A50580 Memoires of the life of Anthony, late Earl of Shaftsbury with a speech of the English consul at Amsterdam concerning him, and a letter from a burger there about his death. 1683 (1683) Wing M1671; ESTC R902 11,863 12

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MEMOIRES OF THE LIFE OF ANTHONY LATE Earl of Shaftsbury WITH A SPEECH OF THE English Consul at Amsterdam concerning him AND A LETTER From a BURGER there about his Death Offered to Consideration of the Protestant Dissenters MIEVEX VAVLT MOVRIR E VERTV QUE VIVRE EN HONCTE LONDON Printed for WALTER DAVIS 1682 3. MEMOIRES THere is nothing which of late hath been more surprizing than the consideration of the wonderful Industry which a sort of Deluded People for so in charity I would distinguish some of them from others who act out of Malice Interest and Revenge and what pains they have taken to make themselves and all others uneasy and to see this toilsome and laborious Diligence inevitably and in its natural and most rational consequences tending to the pulling down upon their own heads the united vengeance of Heaven and Earth the severity of Humane Laws which by provoking they daily exasperate to use the utmost rigor and the more terrible and inexorable punishments of Hell and Damnation as certainly the portion of those who resist the Higher Powers as that there is a God and that the Scriptures are so true that Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not one single Iota of those dreadful Comminations pass unfulfilled This consideration as it increases my astonishment so it moves my compassion nor is the Compassion I have for the Dissenters from the Government of England for such indeed are all those who are commonly called Dissenters from the Church and eò Nomine punished by the Laws of the Civil Government the Peace of which they disturb and endanger only a bare pity which looks no farther then a few tender Expressions Alas poor Creatures or God help them or such like but I have long had in my thoughts to do something that might tend to their real advantage and secure them from the dangerous Precipice of Ruin here and Damnation hereafter upon which they seem to stand It is the misfortune of these People to have the blind lead the blind their pretended Guides blinded with Rage and the fear of losing their Shrine-making which brings them in their Gains will not let them see their danger but exhort them to obstinacy against the Laws and Government under the colour of Constancy and suffering Persecution for Religion when there is not the least foundation of truth in it and they wildly buoy them up with expectations of some miraculous deliverance from Heaven while in the mean time they endeavour to draw all their hopes of assistance from Hell and support them in their obstinacy against the Laws and their Lawful Governours by the expectation of a revolution in the Government it self which they have and do with their utmost art and industry endeavour to undermine and overthrow The successless attempts they have of late made against it would if they would sit down and bestow a few moments cool Reflection be sufficient to convince them that they are not at all either the Care or the Favourites of Heaven and I am perswaded that would they but see how like Pharaoh and his Chariots and his Horse-men and all his Host they have pursued the Church into the midst of the Sea and that the Waves have begun to return towards their strength that the Wheels of their Chariots have been so often taken off and have driven so heavily they would be obliged to say with the Egyptians Let us fly from the face of the English Israel for God sighteth for them against the Egyptian Dissenters and I wish they do not by their obstinacy drive the Allegory too far and repent when it is too late Among all the variety of thoughts upon which I might fix in order to do this miserable and mistaken People a real kindness I could not think of any more proper than the exposing to their view one of the great occasions of their Delusion the late E. of Shaftsbury the diseases of whose Mind lay in a great measure concealed from their eyes so long as he lived as many times those of the Body do to the most learned sons of Hermes till the death of their Patients does by dissection of their bodies give satisfaction to their doubts and curiosity and not only so but may be of advantage too to the living by shewing the true causes of some effects which were before wholly unknown and therefore incurable And truly this is the principal reason of this Anatomy Lecture upon the Life and Death of that Noble Peer And if we find in his Character that his Religion was always calculated for the Latitude of his Interests and Designs that he could therefore certainly have none who could be occasionally contented with any that he could under an Usurper countenance and promote the trampling down of the Laws and Liberties of the English Nation and therefore could not by inward Principles be an Enemy either to Popery or Arbitrary Government it may be a means to undeceive such as have been seduced by his Speeches and Professions to believe him so great a Pillar of the Protestant Religion and so strong a Bastion against Arbitrary Government and not only so but may teach them for the future to give no credit to any such who hereafter by a sTATE Metempsychosis shall seem to have received the Soul of Shaft sbury by transmigration and shall with the same principles and pretences stand in opposition to the established Government and thereby endeavour to maintain their Ground and secure their own heads from punishment by courting and animating a Popular Faction to oppose the Government which in all humane probability must end in the ruin and confusion of those refractory and obstinate opposers of the Peace and Happiness of the Nation I know it will look like a cowardly and ungenerous insolence to tread hard upon the fame of the Dead and if it contradicts the old Proverb De mortuis nil nisi bonum to speak well of the Dead I must say this by way of Anticipation to that Objection that the dead must first have deserved to be well spoken of and that the intention of this Paper was never level'd at so low a mark as to trample upon the Fame of his Lordship but to prevent the mischiefs which yet he may do even after his death if the world shall still be permitted to go on in the belief that his Lordship was all that which he pretended to be and others who shall step up into the place of this head of the Hydra which Providence hath newly cut off shall be also supposed to succeed him in those imaginary Qualifications and Excellencies of Zeal for his Country and the Protestant Religion which this Paper undertakes to demonstrate he was as far from as Catiline or Sejanus or their far surpassing Oliver ever were from being Friends to their Country the Liberty Peace and Happiness of the People who had the misfortune to be under the power of their Tyranny This Noble Peer was born in the