Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A36836
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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
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Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing D2539; ESTC R1765
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11,612
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23
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was a thing far from their thoughts to be willing to have the Infallibility of Rome be according to their first resolutions accounted unalterable as if what had been once Established should not need to be touched over again since they only designed to give the first draught as it were of the Reformation adjusted to the posture of England in their time not to what they could have wished but to what they were able to do for as we learn by some Letters of Calvin and Peter Martyr the first Reformers did promise themselves much that their Successors would go from those first Rudiments of Reformation to that which should be a more perfect and exact work when the people should be more illuminated and the number of Protestants should be greater Et sic à talibus Rudimentis sayes Calvin in his Epistle to the English men where he calls those Rudiments tolerabiles ineptias incipere licuit ut doctos tamen probosque graves Christi Ministros ultra eniti aliquid limatius purius quaerere consentaneum foret The first Reformers acted in that manner as persons carry themselves in the first Establishments of States and Kingdomes wherein the Legislators do not propose to make a perfect Model of Government which neither can nor ought to suffer a change from good to better And so it is in the first Invention of Arts as of Paper Printing concerning Navigation Painting or any other curious work c. in which it is never to be expected that one should attain the height of perfection at one dash or Essay and where oftentimes what the first Inventors have projected is not practicable by those that come after them BUT those who have succeeded the first Reformers have not trod in their good steps nor have they been influenced by the Interests of Heaven but by those of this World As five or six hundred persons of the Clergy the Bishops Deans and Canons have got into the possession of two thirds of the Ecclesiastical Revenues they are now become Zealous Opposers of the work of a more perfect Reformation and block up all the Avenues to all attempts of dividing the Benefices more equally than they are and which are enjoyed by a very small inconsiderable number of persons They labour to perswade those that have the rule over them that what the Non-conformists call but a breaking forth or rude Essay of Reformation in the time of Cranmer and Ridley was a perfect work and Masterpiece which ought not to be medled with any more unless by a greater affinity with Rome Above all they labour to infuse into the minds of these Crowned heads that the KING at the head of the Convocation and even by his sole Power and Authority can give Laws to the Church independantly on His Parliament and so by that means to continue an Ecclesiastical Empire seperate from the Civil and to make it rest upon that small number of the Clergy which possesses the two thirds of Ecclesiastical Revenues TO be short as the Successors of Cranmer and Ridley saw that the design of those glorious Martyrs could not take its effect but by depriving them of their Empire and of all their fat Benefices they have acted just quite contrary to what they had in their Eye to be brought to pass for instead of getting further and further from the Doctrine and practices of Rome they have been alwayes advancing more and more to them whereas the first Reformers in retaining some of the Ceremonies of Rome did principally intend by that nearness of affinity with it to draw over those of that Communion to their own and not to impose them with rigour on the Protestants those who have come after them have turned a means of Peace and Reconciliation into an Apple of discord division and Schisme Whereas the first Reformers had pulled down the Altars these have set them up again Whereas those above all things aimed to respect the Churches beyond Sea and to keep a strict Union and Friendship with them their Successors have banished them both from their Society and Communion and have turned Calvin into redicule and fanaticisme Their Animosity is so far carried out against the Churches of France that Henry Dodwell has maintained to Dr. Tillotson that the Reformed Churches in France had better by much have kept in the Communion of the Church of Rome than be governed as they are without Episcopal ordinations AS to the Overtures to a Re-union it is to be expected from the Wisdom of the Parliament that they will do all that their first Reformers would have done if they were alive at this day for a perfect establishment of the Protestant Religion against the attempts of Rome and that they will act the Reverse to what the Successors of the first Reformers have practised which has been continually to oppose and bring obstacles to the good designs of both KING and Parliament who would have made no doubt before this time a Reformation of the Abuses of the Church of England As when the House of Commons has made what they have oft attempted preparatory Acts to give bounds to the immeasurable Jurisdiction of the Bishops to give them Assistants to take away the plurality of Benefices and to reduce Chapters to a better pass and usage than they are at this day which nourishes onely idleness and sloth And when in the 13. year of Q. Eliz. there was a Statute made which obliged Ministers onely to subscribe to the Articles concerning Doctrine the corrupt party of the Church of England alwayes rendred fruitless and insignificant all these fair Overtures of Union and even have trampled upon the Models proposed by the good Bishops Vsher and Hall and with heat and transport opposed the Establishment of that excellent Model which our gratious KING CHARLES the II. proposed at the time of his Restauration to the Crown and which it could be wished that the Parliament would again take into their serious Consideration as the onely remedy to re-unite both Parties and to settle the Protestant Religion upon its firm and natural Basis and render it impenetrable to all the designs and attempts of the Papists THIS Model is so much the more excellent as it is formed upon that of the People of God among whom the Church and Republique were Synonimous terms and the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was not distinct from the Civil for the Sacrificers as such were not invested with any Jurisdiction Naturaliter Sacerdotibus sayes Grotius de Imperio summarum Potestatum cap. 9. sect 3. nulla jurisdictio competit quare etsi Sacerdotes habuerunt jurisdictionem non habuerunt ut Sacerdotes sed ut Magistratus AND it is therefore to be hoped and expected from the Wisdome of the Parliament whose designs have been of late vigorously seen to oppose Popery that they would banish this Maxim of a Collaterality of Iurisdictions which establishes it mightily in the world Methinks it is so much the more Erronious as
it was disputed against in the year 1641. By the Author of an Excellent book the title whereof is The Heritage of Bishops and who it is thought was a Bishop for he there expressly denyes their right of Suffrage and voting in the house of Peers as you may see by his words pag. 22. Dogma est pontificium quod regimen Ecclesiasticum est distinctum à civili c. That opinion which distinguishes the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the civil is a pure piece of Popery It is affirmed by Bellarmine libr. de Pontifice cap. 5. with an accent of so much the more assurance as it is not contested neither by the Protestant Doctors nor by those of Rome this is what that Cardinal affirms from a pure motive of interest that so he might exalt the power of the Pope above that of KINGS and Princes and that so he might exempt the Clergy from their submission to the Secular Authority Calvin agrees with Bellarmine Instit lib. 4. cap. 11. Sect 1. c. But let it not displease them though this opinion be the Idol of all the world and it hath run through all places and though not only in England but elsewhere the Ecclesiastical Courts are distinct from the Civil yet I do boldly maintaine that this opinion and this Practise is not approved of by God and is contrary to the antient practise under the legal Oeconomy and is the cause of the introduction of Popery into the world and of the disorders that have since come by it AGAIN this Model of Government made by the KING or by his Parliament is so much the more considerable as it hath an harmonious concurrence with that of the first Reformers in England and elsewhere when they made but one body of the Church and of the Republick and did put Ecclesiastical power into a meer mockery and illusion and excommunication they made of it a fantasme unless both were subordinate to the Civil power Such were Zuinglius Cranmer Ridley Hooper Martyr Bullinger Musculus Gualterus and those who succeeded them the two Bishops Wilson and Andrew Richard Hooker Dr. Stillingfleet Cameron Tilenus Rivet Vedel Maccerius Des-Marets Mastrezat Mr. Gaches in his Sermon at the ordination of Mr. Sarrau Mr. Mussard and a hundred others AS to the other overtures for the establishing of good Religion and good order in the Church it is not necessary to speak of them in particular and retaile so long as those who set at the helme of affaires know that the Reformation must begin by that of the Universities banishing out of those Schooles all the Doctrines and persons infected with the Heresies of Rome Pelagius and Socinus and putting into their places such as were in them about twenty years ago or the very Individual persons if they are yet living IT is to be wished also that these Sages of the Parliament would well consider 1. THAT the first Legislators never made Laws to the people until they had before hand throughly weighed whither their dispositions were likely to receive them and the number of the persons either who would in all probability submit voluntarily to them or who possibly might be extream averse to those laws 2. THAT as it is altogether unreasonable nay impossible to impose upon the Scotch people the Ecclesiastical Government the Liturgy and the Ceremonies of England for which fourscore and nineteen of a hundred have an Aversion the honourable Members of Parliament would do well to take the same measures in their debates and practices as to Reformation that they have a design to do in matters of Religion and since of ten persons in England that have a love and kindness for the Protestant Religion there are two thirds of them that cannot away with the Episcopal Government in that manner as it is at this day established at least the Liturgy and the Ceremonies it would be to act contrary to Reason and to continue division disorder and animosities if they did continue the imposition of them 3. THAT this was the thought of Mounsieur de Thou in his Preface to Henry the fourth that it was to sin against Reason and the Peace of the Kingdome to think of being able to bring those of the Reformed Religion to the Communion of Rome and that the onely consideration of their great number ought to perswade the KING to give them as much Religious as Civil liberty 4. THAT as to England it ought also to be the Opinion of its Legislators For it hath it hath been that of all the great men both within and out of England of a Burleigh a Walsingham a Bacon Lord Verulam a Shaftsbury and a Hollis It has been likewise the Opinion of the Papists themselves and of Strangers that have come over into England and have made an exact search and inquiry into the humours the genius and number of those people that adhere to the reigning Religion and of those that are contrary to it My Lord Castlemaine against Dr. Floyd speaks of the Prelates as of persons that have lost their Senses to set upon the Persecuting of those that are much more numerous than themselves They would be punishing for Conscience where above half of the Nation is openly of a perswasion contrary to theirs and three fourths of the remaining parts care not a Fiddle-stick for them SORBIERE in his Voyage into England sayes the Churches are built after the Protestant way and are only great Auditories with Galleries particularly for the use of preaching and some small Cantle of the Liturgy For the people have an aversion for it and the Religion which is at this day received from the State is the least followed in pag. 58. he sayes indeed the Presbyterians are those that have re-established the KING upon his Throne and it is that for which they now reproach him being so persecuted as they are ABOVE all the Italian Historian Siri is express in his History di Currenti tempi La puritana cice che professando il Calvinismo nella sua rigida para forma constituisie la parte l'altre che con odio sempre implacabile alla Religione Catholica The meaning is that the Puritans are that part of the people both the most holy and the most numerous as also the most powerful and most rich and that have the greatest aversion to the Roman Catholick Religion All these considerations and all these testimonies are they not sufficient to perswade our Legislators to make a Reformation adjusted to the great number of the Puritanical people of England and who exceed the others not onely in number but also in purity of Doctrine and exactness of Life and Manners BUT the incongruity of making the Essay of Reformation in the time of KING Edward the sixth to pass for a full and compleat Master-piece that ought not to be touched again is no less than when the tenth part of the people of England and the thousandth part of the Protestants would fain pass for the