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A47895 Notes upon Stephen College grounded principally upon his own declarations and confessions, and freely submitted to publique censure / by Roger L'Estrange. L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704. 1681 (1681) Wing L1281; ESTC R7200 31,704 54

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NOTES UPON Stephen College Grounded Principally upon his own Declarations and Confessions And freely submitted to PUBLIQUE CENSURE By Roger L'Estrange LONDON Printed for Ioanna Brome at the Gun at the West-end of St. Pauls Church-yard 1681. To the Reader IT is not the part of a Christian nor indeed of a Man to Insult upon the Miserable either in their Memories or in their Persons Beside that the Criminal here in question has already satisfied Publique Iustice and is gone to his Place to receive according to his Works This does not hinder yet but that a man may honestly endeavour the putting of a Check to those Clamorous Out-crys that are daily sent forth against the Government upon this occasion as if the whole business of College were only a Perjurious Combination of Papists against Protestants in the Person of that Wretched Malefactor and the Protestant Religion to stand or fall with the Protestant Joyner It is the Intent now of these Papers to lay open the Malice and the Falshood of these Calumnies Not so much for the Vindication of the Proceeding as for the Disabusing of the Common People for the Best Argument for Authority is the Reason of the Laws and in these Cases the Vigorous Execution of them upon the Seditious is the only effectual Remedy It is not that I pretend to Illustrate the Iustice of the Court or of the Verdict by any Additional Remarques of my own but effectually upon other Grounds and Evidences to bring the Offender to a new hearing wherein I shall remit my self to the Iudgment and Conscience of any Indifferent Reader whether there be not Matter sufficient from whence fairly to Infer and to Presume him Guilty of the most material Parts of his Accusation even without the aid of anything that was produc'd against him at his Tryal As for those that are curious to be more particularly inform'd I must refer them to the Printed Tryal it self and so I shall close up my Preface with my Lord Chief Justices Opinion upon the Verdict Lord Chief Iustice to the Pris'ner These things when I look upon them and consider the complexion of your defence it makes an easie Proof have Credit But I think there was a full Proof in your Case yet I say if there had been a great deal less Proof the Jury might with Justice have found you Guilty And because you now declare your self Innocent of all you are charged with I think my self bound to declare here in Vindication of the Country and in Vindication of the Justice of the Court that it was a Verdict well given and to the satisfaction of the Court and I did not find my Brothers did dislike it This I say to you out of Charity that you may incline your mind to a submission to the Justice that hath overtaken you and that you may enter into Charity with all men and prepare your self for another life NOTES UPON Stephen College §. 1. The Proceeding against College Represented as a Design against the Protestant Religion THE main stress of the Cause here in Controversie lies upon a Pretended Zeal for Religion and in such a manner too as if the very Name of a Protestant were a Supersed as for a Traytor and an Exemption from the Ordinary Methods of Law and Iustice. This Design says College is not only against Me but against all the Protestants Trayal p. 5. And again This is a most Horrid Conspiracy to take away my life and it will not stop here for it is against all the Protestants in England Ibid. p. 6. 'T is time to have a Care says Aaron Smith when our Lives and Estates and Al are beset here Ibid. p. 13. My Lord says College again I do not question but to prove this one of the Hellishest Conspiracies that ever was upon the face of the Earth And these the most Notorious Wicked Men an absolute design to destroy all the Protestants in England that have had the Courage to oppose the Popish Plot. Ibid. p. 36. And then in his last Speech I am as certainly Murder'd by the hands of the Papists as Sr. Edmundbury Godfrey himself was though the thing is not seen And once again in his other Speech Printed for Edith College I dye says he by the hands of the Enemies of the Great God his Christ his Servants his Gospel and my Country to which I willingly submit and earnestly pray mine may be the last Protestants Blood that Murdering Church of Rome may shed in Christendom It is no wonder if the Ringing of this Emphatical Reflection the Blood of Protestants a Design upon all the Protestants of England c. over and over in the Ears of the Multitude create Unquiet Thoughts and work some extraordinary Effects upon the minds of the common People It will be well therefore to ask Stephen College what he means by that Protestant Religion that is so much Endanger'd and who and where those Papists are upon whom he Charges this Hellish Conspiracy for we have none as yet in sight that can fall within the compass of his Challenge but his Majesty himself and the Ordinary Ministers of Iustice acting according to the Known Laws and in the Regular Methods of Iudicial Proceedings Now upon a due Examination of this matter there will be found a great difference betwixt Colleges Protestants and Ours and betwixt Our Papists and His So that the Snare lies in the double acceptation of the Word by which they labour to Impose upon the World that the Schismatiques are the only True-Protestants and those of the Church of England in a Confederacy against them with the Papists But we shall take Colleges Religion as he has deliver'd it with his own lips and gather from thence what may be the Cause and the Profession that he contends for §. 2. The meaning of Colleges Protestants I Was ever a Protestant says College I was born a Protestant I have liv'd so and so by the Grace of God I 'le dye Of the Church of England according to the Best Reformation of the Church from all Idolatry from all Superstition or any thing that is contrary to the Gospel of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Colleges last Speech In this Clause he Declares himself upon his Death to be a Protestant of the Church of England according to the Best Reformation c. Now there is No Church of England but that which is Established by Law both in Doctrine and Discipline unless you will make the Dissenting Protestants to be Assenters and Consenters and Feake's Owen's Ralphson's Baxter's Meade's Ienkins's Separate Congregations to be severally the Church of England which no man certainly in his Right Wits will pretend to do So that either he dy'd a True Son of the Established Church of England according to the Genuine Import of the Expression and as most manifestly he would have it thought he did or else his Design was to go off with a Desperate Equivocation betwixt his Teeth if he was any