Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A69910
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The Protestant conformist, or, A plea for moderation contained in a letter from one conforming minister to another : and his answer to it.
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N. Y.; N. D.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing D68; ESTC R4499
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12,308
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8
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example which we are commanded to follow 1 Pet. 2.21 23. and we are called hereunto 1 Pet. 3.8 9 they reckon them no true friends to the Church of England But I hope you and I have not so learned Christ as to be shamed or frighted out of our duty by such as know not what they say nor whereof they affirm We are satisfied in our Consciences to conform to the Discipline and Ceremonies of the Church of England and judg the things required not tanti to make us lose the liberty of our Ministry for not conforming to them Though we dare not so severely censure others who profess they cannot in conscience submit to them And they have manifested the truth of their profession by exposing themselves and families to wants and necessities to scorns and reproaches for not doing of it For men may talk what they please but I can never believe that learned sober godly wise men as bating their differences their greatest enemies must confess many of them to be should meerly out of wilfulness humour peevishness and faction keep off from these things to expose themselves and families to so many troubles and inconveniences for nothing For how censorious soever we are against them I wish for the honour of the Church of England it be a groundless censure of some no enemies to the Church of England I can assure you that profess to fear that if ever Popery should be established by a Law in England which God forbid there would not be that number of Nonconformists to it as was found at St. Bartholomews 1662. You and I may heartily wish that they saw things with our eyes But whilest men have such different apprehensions of things and the Apostles rules are so express in this case Rom. 14.5 and again vers 22 23. we dare not but observe those excellent rules the Apostle gives us in that Chapter which we could earnestly desire all our Brethren would study and practice and to as many as walk according to these Rules mercy and peace shall be upon them as upon the Israel of God It 's sad to see how we gratifie the Papists and serve their designs and when one Plot hath miscarried they are so successfully carrying on another and laugh in their sleeves to see what fools they can make of us to have their work done to their hands and can fail faster and safer with a side wind than they could with a full gale Oh how they hug themselves to see Protestants set together by the ears and like Solomon's foolish woman pulling down her house with her own hands How many daily under the vizard of the Church of England by specious Pamphlets and cunning insinuations would make Protestant dissenters seem worse than Papists So that whosoever shall but offer to speak of any danger from the Papists or move for a vigorous prosecution of the Plot he is presently branded for a Fanatick and opposed by them that pretend to be of the Church of England as the most dangerous of the two If the Dissenters had been convicted of conspiring to take away the Kings life to subvert the Government to alter the Established Religion had a score of them been Executed at Tyburn upon that account what could have been spoken or written more severely against them A stranger that knows othing of the late Plot taking his measures and making his judgment by the Popular out-cry and clamour which some that profess to be of the Church of England make from the Press and in discourse against them cannot possibly believe otherwise than that Coleman was a Presbyterian and Whitebread Ireland Gavan Harcourt and Turner were all ejected Ministers at St. Bartholomews And this course of theirs doth more amaze the observing world because Mr. Dugdale hath openly sworn it at the Trial of Whitebread c. That it was the opinion of them at Paris and St. Omers to fling all this upon the Presbyterians that is the death of the King That if any thing of that nature should happen they should be ready to give the first alarm and give it out that it was those still King killing Presbyterians that had done the fact Like Nero of old that set Rome on fire thinking he could never have a better prospect of it than by its own light and then to lay it upon the Christians and as our Powder-plotters had their Proclamations ready if their design had taken to have laid it upon the Puritans And so they thought they should have brought the Episcopal party into their company to revenge themselves upon the Presbyterians To which the Lord Chief Justice returned It was pretty advice indeed to have it first laid on the Presbyterians that they might get the Episcopal to join and cut them off and then their own Throats should be cut For if they could get these old Fanaticks dispatched out of the way which if we may believe them that have turned from them to us and been the Discoverers of the Plot they hate and fear as much as any of us they would quickly find out new and fresh Fanaticks and some are ready to think the name of Protestant would soon be lost that we must be all termed Papists or Fanaticks Now I must confess to you when I compare these things with the words and practices of some that would be thought white-boys of the Church of England all the blood of my body flys into my face and it 's either shame or anger or a passion mixt of both that sent it thither to observe how ready they are to close with this Jesuitical Artifice and to turn their spleen and indignation upon those whom notwithstanding the more minute differences amongst us I dare not but own as brethren and esteem as zealous Protestants as our selves In a word if the Dissenters be guilty of this Damnable divellish Plot let 'em die for it if innocent why are they reviled for it And should we tempt them to think there is very little difference between guilt and innocency that whoever is in the fault they must bear the blame Sir it concerns us now to speak or for ever to be silent and to warn our people that they do not gratifie the Papists in this design To conclude Ministers in Scripture are stiled Watchmen and we had need to warn our flocks of their danger and they are stiled Fishers and whilest others fish for Flaces let us fish for Souls We need not envy them their Pluralities and Dignities and Preferments that slight and scorn the moderation we profess if God will but enable us to be diligent and faithful in our work and make us instrumental to do good to Souls it will be a greater honour and comfort to us when we come to die than all their worldly advantages will be to them Dear Brother Farewell Let you and I take the Apostles Exhortation 1 Pet. 5.2 3. Feed the flock which is amongst us taking the over-sight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind neither as being lords over Gods heritage but being ensamples to the flock and when the chief shepherd shall appear we shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away And this is the highest ambition of Sir Your unworthy Brother and Fellow-labourer N. D. Septemb. 22. 1679.
their heart and they knew not any thing to my knowledg many of them did as much as possible condole the horrid consequences of that War and did believe as you and I also did that the Finger of Joab had an unseen motion in those affairs though personally and visibly acted by men whose after climbing to the seat of Government shew'd what was before in their hearts as he sees little in the world that knows not that the self-same Design may not be endeavoured and driven on by men of contrary Principles and for contrary ends I had not insisted on this so well known already to you but that I hear with some grief our young Levites who neither saw nor suffered what we did Hectoring at that rate against some innocent Protestants and which my Ink it seems should blush to recite declaring that they would rather close with the Papists than admit of composure with Dissenting Protestants It is an ordinary Observation That a quarrel amongst nearest Relations is often most grievous but when one of such for meer revenge will unite himself to the mortal enemy of both who will not affirm him void of not only grace but good nature Oh degenerate Age Where is that Evangelical peace and love our Saviours blessed Legacy where 's that servent charity is it turned into burning hatred Where 's that Moderation we should shew unto all men is it degenerated into the most inexorable rancor That sheep should stray and sometimes encounter one another in the absence of the wolf is not strange but when the wolves come they at least unite and not having power to resist flie together That these wolves of Romulus abound amongst us all now that are not already guld by them But to elude the care of our vigilant Shepherds these Monsters worse than that which Hercules wrestled with have dwindled the Wolf into a Fox and to avoid suspicion have cunningly cover'd that too with Lambs wool that it requires much circumspection to discover them He that hath read the Legend of their Clownish St. Francis and the story of the Illuminati will easily believe who are the Fathers of our Quaking Sect though themselves possibly know not and it is too eviden that they have screwed themselves and transsused their Influences into all the several Perswasions amongst us none excepted And as they take the cawls of our sheep in the fields for compounding their Fire balls to burn our Cities so in compensation they instill wilder fire under the notion of zeal an excellent grace of it self but misguided of most dismal effects into the sheep of the great Shepherd to the renewing of the complaint Homo homini Lupus And without controversie if they find their expected success these Flambeaus will much more prompt their work than those they bestowed so freely towards the destroying of our Mother-city in 66. And that we may better conjecture what they are doing elsewhere I shall give you a skantling of what we observed in my own Parish though too late taken notice of else probably the world might have known the persons as well as the design Two Gentlemen pretty well accoutred took up a Lodging together they seem'd no contemptible persons nor wanted moneys they both wore Perukes and which made some the more suspicious of them had considerable variety and differing much in colour yet seldom made use of their Flaxen ones in Town but as one of the Maids of the house observed he that rode abroad oftenest took one of that sort in his Coat-pocket the Neighbourhood begun to imagine them Highway-men but one of them seldom riding abroad during their six Months stay here and their orderly Decorum and converse begot a better opinion of them one was observed to go frequently to the meetings of Dissenters and there behave himself as seriously as any of them the other when he was not out of Town sot he commonly ordered his Journeys on Friday or Saturday and returned on Monday would mostly come to the Parish-Church and to any ones sight demean himself very devoutly He would ordinarily as â—e could find opportunity be in the company of good Consormists and if none else hapned to speak of Church-affairs he would break the Ice and mostly begin with magnifying the Church of England as the best constituted in the world and after a large Harangue for he could speak with a Grace would bemoan the Divisions in it and conclude with the necessity of extirpating all Dissenters root and branch for else says he those Samaritans will never rest till they have yazed it to the very ground This was his ordinary Theme though with some variation of words till one time a good Neighbour of mine zeplied upon him Sir 'T is a true saying it 's easier to give than take Counsel how do you practise what you advise to while it appears your Comerade your bosom-friend is one that frequents Conventicles and is daily in the company of such cannot you either win him or discard him Oh Sir says he I must tell you he is my intimate friend of a long standing and I can digest his conversation in all things but that which for good reasons I do a little indulge for by him I have in this as well as other places where we have resided my Neighbour thought this slipt undesignedly from him the advantage of knowing their secret discourses and machinations against the Church and thereby the means of justly inciting the zeal of such good men as you against this generation of Vipers This stirred up the choler of an honest Mechanick that had quietly listened all this while that he broke silence thus For my part I neither like you nor your friend and it 's well if you be not brethren in evil or like Sampson's Foxes that you turn tails to do mischief 't is well known in the Town that I go constantly to Church and yet I hope here 's no Informers here I often hear an honest Minister preach elsewhere and I hope my care of being instructed for another world will neither offend the Justices nor the Parson If I had heard any preach sedition I would have quickly as it is my duty have acquainted the Magistrates with it But I tell you and then he spoke with more impatience I never heard a man in my life talk so disloyally as your companion so that I have carefully avoided his company of late and he has so bedawbed the Church of England and rendered the fears of Tyranical usage from them so formidable and that they would use us worse than Papists that I believe his design was to turn us Papists and however most of the people that have any degree of Prudence and sobriety could wish him with his fellows in Newgate yet there 's one or two that I fear he has perverted and it may be we shall hear more of him or you elsewhere for I heard this very day of one of your haunts not far from this place