Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A60703
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Deo ecclesiæ & conscientiæ ergo, or, A plea for abatement in matters of conformity to several injunctions and orders of the Church of England to which are added some considerations of the hypothesis of a king de jure and de facto, proving that King William is King of England &c as well of right as fact and not by a bare actual possession of the throne / by Irænevs Junior ...
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Iraeneus, junior.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing S4396; ESTC R14451
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122,821
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116
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Weather Mountains want too much That being past a Mole-hill now they grutch Witness that great regret some of them have express against that Kindness and Favour which they King and two succeeding Parliaments have beyond denial evideneed to our Dissenting Protestant Brethren who with Fury bite the Chain which restrains them from falling foul upon their former Prey Besides their unreasonable stickle to prevent the least Abatement in Matters which respect the Ceremonial part of our Worship A Conformity to which goes with them for the whole Duty of a Minister Obedience to Government a very good and Gospel Doctrine was the constant Theme of the Pulpit but our high men have done with it as the Priest did with the Sword of Goliah wound it up in the Ephod and laid it behind the Altar Though when time was our whole Duty was placed in a wild Notion and extravagant Pretence to Loyalty No Man being esteemed Loyal or a Lover of his Prince who did not so far doat as to follow the Measures and promote the Designs of turning the best tempered Government in the World into a Despotick and Arbitrary Rule These wife Master-builders had raised the Fabrick of Sovereign Power to that â—mmense Height and extravagant Projecture as no way agreed with the just Methods of any civil Architecture putting in the mean time the Mischief of the Project far from themselves Supposing that if it did fall it might perhaps grind their Enemies to Powder but never dreamt of its tipping upon their own Heads as we have before observed Insomuch that whatever they heard which might awaken them to prevent their impending Ruine went for nothing but the ever-jealous Notions and muâ—â—nous Suggestions of disloyal and dissaffected Men. But when they began to feel the Massy weight of an overgrown Monarch with what Zeal did they stickle to put a Bridle into the Mouth and Hook into the Nostrils of that Leviathan whose Tusks had ript up the Belly of our Laws and Liberties upon whose Neck they had so lately thrown the Reigns of Government which the Prince whom God now hath blest us with hath delivered back again to the People Esteeming the Prerogative never better asserted than when the Rights and Properties of the Subject the great end of Government are kept inviolate and that Caesar can never have his due if the People be denied what 's theirs Being so great an Artist in governing as to carry a steddy Hand and keep the Ballance even for if too much weight be put into one Scale the other will kick up as our late King by a costly Experiment found true But as it pleased the Almighty to raise up a Moses to deliver us from the Brick-kilns and to break the Yoak from off the neck of our civil Liberties so we trust he will rescue us from the iron Furnaces too loosing every Burthen and letting our Consciences go free which have not been so much gauled with Points of Doctrine and Articles of Faith and Religion as with the rites and Ceremonies of it We so generally agree as to Matters of Faith that Dissenters in respect of that are so few as to their Number and as to their Quality so inconsiderable that they are not able to make any Schism or cause any disturbance amongst us Could we but find a Temper to accommodate these lesser things which by a Spirit of Meekness and Moderation Christian Charity and Forbearance might easily be effected we should have an end of Controversie Heats would cool Animosities would cease they 'd want Fuel to feed them and Matter to work upon The making Sides and Parties to elect Members for Parliament would be at an end which have so frequently fermented the Humours of the Body politick into lasting and dangerous Factions and Distempers Were but our Contests about the Form and Rites of Religion by some wise and prudent Concordate framed by our Governours determined and moderated we need not fear we should fall out about Matters of State being all agreed to bear out share in the Charge necessary for its Grandeur and Defence We should all sit under our Vines and Fig-tress leading a peaceable and quiet Life when once these Bones of Contention were taken out of the way and Apples of Strife which they say grow upon a Tree that 's neither good nor evil become forbidden Fruit. Besides we are not sturdy Beggars we ask not Talents but Shekels we only desire to wash and be clean from those additions to Divine Worship which we are afraid may defile our Consciences and not be so well pleasing to God Things which the Imposers tell us are Matters indifferent when abstracted from their Authority But suppose it should be an inconvenience to take them away yet sure so great a good as an universal Quiet would be sufficient to commute for no greater Nuisance But we are perswaded of the contrary from the Reasons we have alledged besides the Authorities of some of the greatest Prelates and Members of the Church of England viz. Hooper Bishop of Worcester Jewel Bishop of Salisbury Sands Arch-bishop of York Horne Bishop of Winchester Why should I again name Cranmer Ridley Grindal upon this subject who endeavoured to have the Habits of the Clergy as a Popish Relique cast out The Arch-bishop of St. Andrews speaking in his Sermon at the Assembly of Perth did acknowledge That the Conveniency of them was doubted by many but not without Cause c. Novations in a Church even in the smallest things are dangerous had it been in our Power to have disswaded or declined them most certainly we would c. Mr. Sprint also though a Conformist yet saith It may be granted that offence and hinderance to Edification do arise from these our Ceremonies He confesseth also That the best Divines wisht them to be abolished Which by her own Confession is in the Power of the Church to grant Which speaking in the Preface of the Common Prayer See 34. Art of Religion saith that the Ceremonies which remain may be for just Causes taken away altered or changed and gives good reason for it because they are in their own nature indifferent and so alterable The Words be these The particular Forms of Divine Worship and the Rites and Ceremonies appointed to be used therein being things in their own nature indifferent and alterable and so acknowledged It is but reasonable upon weighty and important Considerations according to the various Exigency of times and occasions such Changes and Alterations should be made therein as to those that are in place of Authority should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient accordingly we find that in the Reigns of several Princes of Blessed Memory since the Reformation the Church upon just and weighty Considerations her thereunto moving hath yielded to make such alterations in such Particulars as in their respective times were thought convenient c. As for weighty Causes sure we never had any more ponderous to incline the
have all Preferments when time was turned For could the Church and State but lay their Foundation here they concluded their Nest to be built upon a Rock But if Grace be not writ upon the Walls of it the Beam out of its own Timber the Stone out of its own Wall will cry down with it down with it even to the Ground without this we shall but daub with untempered Mortar and may cry Peace Peace when Destruction is at hand St. Austine observed that the Romans built their Temple of Concord where the Seditions of the Gracchi had been acted Tiberius and Caius Which Temple afterwards was so far from restraining Decivitate deâ— lib. 3. cap. 25. that it became a Promoter of the highest and most bloody Outrages For Formality-sake we may carry the Ark into the Camp of our Church but the Glory will depart from us so long as the Sins of the young Men be great but their Reproofs small so that hitherto we have mistaken our Enemies and like the Andabaâ—ae have fought with our Eyes shut contending de lanâ Caprinâ we scarce know what we have fallen out for or with whom Alas it hath been our Brethren of the same Faith and Religion whereas our Contests should have been with Spiritual wickednesses in high places yea such have been the Policy and Envy of those who rejoiced in our Divisions hoping to make their own Market of them as first to perswade that they were no Friends to Caesar and then to engage the Civil Magistrate to treat them as Enemies making them â—riples and then beating them with their Crutches who to get the Staff into their Hand would frequently suggest to the Prince whose Ear they could command that there was a People whose Laws were contrary to the King's Laws and therefore desired him to write that they might be destroyed which contrary to often and open Promises of an undisturbed and free Exercise of their Religion he was frequently prevailed with to do Signing divers Acts for their Prosecution Which by a ravenous sort of Informers were so managed as by Bonds and imprisonments Confiscations and Banishments the protestant Dissenters were ravaged and ruined But such have been the Wisdom of our late Senates to see and discover by whom and for what ends they were thus pusht on and acted The Tide of our Councils seems very much turned SERMON preacht at â—ublin before the Lord's Justices of Ireland by the Dean of St. Patricks Printed 1691. since we have with more chearfulness levied such considerable Sums of Money to reimburse our Neighbours the Charge of our deliverance than what was unaccountably raised and expendedâ— Vt delenda esset Carthago It certainly argued saith the Deaâ— of St. Patricks a very passive and submissive Temper in them to give Money so liberally and to fight so fiercely as they did to destroy themselves and their fellow Protestants to make sport for their common Adversaries and to serve the Interest of their most dangerous Enemies This was saith he part of the Project laid down at large in a Paper found in the Earl of Tyrâ—onnel's House then Colonel Talboâ—â— dated July 1671. supposed to be drawn up by his Brother then Titular Arch-bishop of Dublin viz. in these Words That the Toleration of the Roman Catholick Religion in England be granted and the Insolency of the Hollanders be taken down a Confederacy with France Dean of St. Patrick's Sermon c. the Ashes of Amboina must be raked for Embers to put us in a Flame against them and the Affront urged that was given us when their Fleet refused to make Obeysance and strike Sail to the King 's Yatcht sent among them The first of which some thought was not always to be remembred nor the latter a sufficient Ansa for a National Quarrel or which might have been attoned at a far less rate than it stood this unhappy Nation in both of Blood and Treasure But how then should the great design of extirpating the Northern Heresie which was then the Catholick Project have been managed which many Protestants were inconsiderately easily and with too much Zeal engaged in being great Enemies to their Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Constitutions taking all Suggestions of the fear of Popery to be nothing but the old Puritanical Cant revived and ungrounded Scandal cast upon the King as if he had other designs than to maintain the Honour and Grandeur of the Nation which made many of our own Religion very zealous and valourous in carrying on the War against them But the Parliament taking Scent of this deep-laid Project addrest the King to proceed to a Treaty of a speedy Peace as I remember the Words were esteeming a further Prosecution of the War nothing less than a pulling down those Banks and Barriers which were erected against the See of Rome though too many were too great Infidels to believe it till they felt themselves wet-shod in Holy-water and that Tiber so powerfully brake in upon us that the whole Land lookt bright with Popery When alas all the Remedy the Non-resistance Men could afford us was Who a Devil could have thought it but we hope such care will be taken that there shall be no occasion for them to make us such a second amends or be so far heeded that they should again involve us in the same Circumstances and once more give us another flap with their Tails Non licet his peccare Indeed 't is believed they 'll never boil Prerogative to its former height the all Charters must be arbitrary Officers of State but Judges especially ad placitum the only way to sell Justice and to buy the needy for a Pair of Shooes Then Non-Resistance and Passive-Obedience very true and wholesome Doctrines if rightly stated were the universal Cry and squeezed till the Blood came But the Mischief was when they had nurst the Prerogative till it had stung some of them and hill as all the rest they presently let the World see they never brewed this Doctrine for their own drinking Let a coâ—â—â—â—ed Child be but once sâ—ibbed and it flâ—es in the Face of the most indulgent Parent They ne'er expected that non-Resistance would ever have fallen to their share unless when Preferments and Dignities were offered to their acceptance But when they came to experiment with Perillus the Bull they had framed for others What Out-cries did they make Then they acknowledged we indeed suffer justly But what have our Brethren done whom we pursued with such Revenge and Rage Then they confest that they sacrificed the Interest of the Church to their Malice But if the Dissenters would forbear to comply with the common Enemy they would do great things for them whenever they came again into their Kingdom But alas there 's too too much reason as to such kind of promises to apply that of the poet viz. Ægrotat daemon monaobus tune esse volebaâ— Convaluit daemon daemon ut ante suit In stress of