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A26389 An Address of thanks, on behalf of the Church of England, to Mris. James, for her worthy vindication of that church 1687 (1687) Wing A546; ESTC R8839 2,633 4

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SIGILL COLL YALEN NOV PORT NOV ANGL LUX ET VERITAS אורים ותמם I give these Books for the founding of a College in this Colony YALE VNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of Edward S. Harkness 1914 An Address of Thanks On Behalf of The Church of England TO Mris. JAMES For Her Worthy Vindication of That CHURCH Published with Allowance MADAM THo the Sons of Our Church seem of late somewhat out of Humour as to the Business of Addressing yet the Obligations You have laid upon Us cannot but vanquish the most Obstinate 'T is true scarce any of Us could find in our Hearts to Thank the King at all for the Greatest and most Gracious Favour that ever Prince did or could Vouchsafe to Subjects And those Few that pretend to do it have proceeded so Awkwardly in their Acknowledgments as renders them of very little Value For to Thank His Majesty not Absolutely for the Main Scope of His Healing Declaration but only for one Single Expression therein relating to our own immediate Interest and Temporal Advantages and at the same time to press the continuance of those Penal Laws which diametrically oppose both the Royal Indulgence and that Generous Universal and most Christian Principle upon which it is grounded is apt to be construed not only a gross Defect of Charity as if we regarded no bodies Ease and Happiness but our Own and minded our Possessions above all other Considerations but also discovers a deep-rooted Aversion to the Toleration it self a tacite Reflection on His Majesties Proceedings and a violent Inclination to be Pashing and Goring Rending and Tearing as fiercely as formerly if ever we can get the opportunity And what is all this will our Enemies say but to Upbraid and Affront the King whilst we seem to Complement Him But whatever Cause His Majesty may have to Resent this Shuffling Conduct You Madam shall not fail of our Sincere Respects for so Brave an Effort on the Behalf of our Distressed Mother It must be confessed she was under very deplorable Circumstances For tho her Doctrines stood firm as a Rock for thereon They are grounded and She enjoyed not only Publique Liberty and Protection but all the Ecclesiastical Revenues to boot yet alas She was disarm'd of her Thunderbolts Her dear Excommunicato Capiendo's her sweet Twenty Pound per Month Penalties her pretious Thirty-Fifth of Elizabeth and the like Weapons of her Spiritual Warfare were all wrested out of her Hands or render'd Useless Toleration Discuss'd to her vast disadvantage The Mischief of Seperation prov'd to proceed from the Mischief of Impositions And not a Man of Sense that would appear on her behalf for the Restitution of this Blessed Artillery For those Mighty Champions and well-paid Pensioners who swagger'd so high for her in days of Yore had no more Ink at her Service when once the Golden Current was dry'd up but remain Retir'd and Silent as Owls at Noon and like Treacherous Advocates having Exhausted their Clients Purse in a tedious Vnnecessary Brangle desert her when reduc'd by their own Ill-management to Sue in Forma Pauperis In this Extremity you Madam are the Pucelle de Dieu that Joan of Arque who stept in to Retrieve our Forlorn Affairs and body up our Sinking Reputation You are the brave Semiramis that must Rebuild the Walls of our Babel You have satisfied all the World by undeniable Demonstrations That our Church has its Enthusiasts too as well as the Rankest Phanaticks And tho you could not as you Gravely tell us obtain to be the City's you shall have our Vote to be the Churches God-Mother and to Fast too if you please since you have got so rare a Knack at it for all our Reverend Clergy because that Meager Exercise may not perhaps agree very kindly with many of their Constitutions We cannot but with equal Joy and Gratitude observe how wonderously you have Edified the Tripe-Women and Convinc'd the Porters That our Church is the only Church for Loyalty and that you your self how light soever can Weigh down all the rest in that excellent Qualification The truth is whilst the Government takes our Measures and advances our Interest we can be very Loyal huge good Subjects and Admirers of Prerogative as long as we are pleas'd But if our Purposes be cross'd and Affairs happen to go against the grain of our Humour we can be as Peevish as our Neighbours drop the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and leave Non Resistance to shift for it self prove as apt as any to murmur and look bowdy as full of Fears and Jealousies the Swadling-Clouts of Sedition as the Tribe of Forty One it self As loud in Clamours at the Ministers of State as busie in Squinting Reflections to mis-represent our Superiors Actions and Intentions as ready to lick up the Abominated Distinction between the Natural and Politick Capacity and to set the Law and the Prerogative at Daggers-drawing against each other But all this notwithstanding we have your Word for 't That our Church of England that is as you Wittily define it p. 7. Those that are for Common-Prayer and Bishops desires Nothing Else but to serve God Truly and the King Rightly and we Rejoyce we have such an Authentick Evidence in the case for else the People would suspect it was rather To hold our Benefices Domineer over our Neighbours and Ruin all that will not Truckle to our Inventions You have asserted which amongst Friends passes as well as if you had prov'd it That all the World you might decently have Excepted some few that may happen to be of your Soveraign's contrary Opinion knows That they that are for Liberty of Conscience Never had any Loialty A bold Stroke which besides a very course Complement on his Majesty Brands the Bulk of the Nation for Rebels and Traitors For all these your Great and Heroick Atchievements you may justly expect our Grateful Acknowledgments and especially for your most Orthodox Hopes That the King will not satisfy His Own and the far greater part of His Subjects Desires by removing the Test and the Penal Laws but let them stand as Rods do upon Mantil-trees to keep Rebellious Children in Subjection A brave Expedient to continue our Expectations and feed our Hopes of getting Power once again to worry our Honest Peaceable Fellow-Subjects Of whom even of Protestant Dissenters by a Modest Calculation we have thanks to those Excellent Statutes of our own Procurement occasioned the untimely Death of above Three-thousand Persons by their Imprisonment in Noisome Jails and Ruin'd more than Threescore-thousand Families within 25 years by past And all this on the Score of Conscience and Non-Conformity to Ceremonies which we our selves own'd to be Indifferent Yet still we are not without good hopes that your Notable Paper in Conjunction with our strenuous Endeavours which are much of the same size both for Logick and Politicks may cajole the Easie Nonconformists to abandon their Interest and Only Preservative at this Critical Juncture And suffer their Actions to give the Lye to all their Addresses by HERDING with our Party to Continue those very Plagues which they have so severely Smarted under and loudly Complained of In Requital whereof we are resolved on the first Opportunity to Scourge them more Canonically then ever That they may learn by Experience the Truth of that Proverb The Rod is Reserved for the Back of Fools In the mean time for these and the rest of your alike Wise and Pious Suggestions we cannot but return you our most Humble and Hearty Thanks as becomes the Modern True Sons of the Church of England And Madam Your most Obliged and Devoted Servants London Printed by George Larkin at the Coach and Horses without Bishopsgate 1687.