Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A28555
|
An apologie for the Church of England against the clamours of the men of no-conscience, or, The Duke of Buckingham's seconds E. B. ...
|
Bohun, Edmund, 1645-1699.
|
1685
(1685)
|
Wing B3447; ESTC R5027
|
7,692
|
14
|
AN APOLOGIE FOR THE Church of England AGAINST THE CLAMOURS Of the MEN of No-Conscience Or the DUKE of Buckingham's Seconds By E. B. Esquire Stulta est clementia cum tot Vbique Vatibus occurras periturae parcere Chartae LONDON Printed for W. Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1685. AN APOLOGIE FOR THE Church of England Against the CLAMOURS Of the Men of No-Conscience THAT the House of Commons now Elected and within a very fews day to Sit is one of the most Loyal that this Nation has seen at any time since the Death of Queen Elizabeth is I suppose not doubted by any Man who has at all considered either who has Chosen them or who has been Chosen Whence then proceeds the insufferable Insolence and Impetuosity of the Dissenters from the Church of England just at this time and where may one guess the Design to terminate Liberty of Conscience is no new Plea it has fed the Press yea and maintain'd many of its Patrons too almost ever since the Year 1660. For before that time we had no great kindness for the Doctrine but only in relation to those who had imbroyl'd three Nations in Blood and Misery and yet all they could not find in their hearts to allow it to their own dear Brethren neither for the Presbyterians opposed and both wrote and Preached what they could against it as has been proved beyond a possibility of Contradiction from their own Prints and when they were reduced to so low a Condition that they could neither grant nor deny it Oliver Cromwell and the Independant Party would never grant this Liberty either to the Roman Catholicks or to the Members of the Church of England and which was more than Barbarous they would not suffer CHARLES the First of Blessed Memory when under restraint by them to have any one of his own Chaplains with him which Extorted this bitter Complaint from him To deny me the Ghostly Comfort of my Chaplains seems a greater Rigour and Barbarity than is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors whom tho' the Justice of the Law deprived of worldly Comforts yet the Mercy of Religion allows them the Benefit of their Clergy as not aiming at once to destroy their Bodies and to damn their Souls But my Agony must not be relieved with the Presence of any one good Angel for such I account a Learned Godly and Discreet Divine And a little before this he has this Expression The Solitude they have confin'd me unto adds the Wilderness to my Temptations for the Company they obtrude upon me is more sad than any Solitude can be When after this they had inhumanly Murthered him and the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hertford and the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey together with the Bishop of London had taken upon them the Care and Charge of Interring their Murdered Master and thereupon Petitioned with great Humility to have Liberty to Read the Liturgie appointed for that Purpose it was denyed and they forced to Deposite him in Silence and Sorrow How the English Puritans treated the Son after the Death of the Father is very well known but they of Scotland pretended to oblige him Call'd him in and promised to Crown him But did they allow him the Liberty of his Conscience No he must take the Covenant first and be converted And one Evening walking in the Garden a couple of Dapper Covenant-Levites making up to him very severely chid him for Profaning the Lords Day by a Walk tho' he had heard two Sermons and been publickly at Morning and Evening Prayers that day besides other private Meditations he was much given to This was all the Liberty of Conscience they would allow their Prince in Scotland whereas in England they sought his Blood How they treated the Episcopal or Prelatical Party during the Rebellion is well enough remembred and after the King was restored and the Laws thereby return'd to their former Force and Vigor yet they pretended even then to fear they had sinn'd against the Lord by suffering Popery so they call'd the Service of the Church of England to be set up and did what they could to hinder it Till an Act of Parliament brought them under And ever since the Act of Uniformity passed they have been Bauling for Liberty of Conscience At length in the beginning of 1672 they by the assistance of the Roman Catholicks obtained an Indulgence of the Late King what use did they make of it Why one of the furious Dissenters suspected the kindness and made Queries upon the Declaration wherein he represented it as a Stratagem to introduce Popeâ—y and Arbitrary Government And though there were others which defended it with that inconvenience annexed to it till they were in a Capacity to do their own business without them yet after they had set a foot the Popish Plot and possess'd themselves of the Affections of the Populace then the Note was altered and the Papists was declared one whose Worship to us is Idolatry and we cannot therefore allow them the Liberty of Publick Assembling as others of the Separation This very passage but five years before was Worded thus But as for the Common Papist who lives Innocently in his way he is to us the Dissenters as other Separatists and so comes under the like Toleration So in 1675 it was lawful to tolerate the Popish Recusants because they could not be Tolerated themselves without their assistance But in 1680. when they were in their Ruff and had as they thought brought all under their Feet then it was unlawful And now again in 1685. it is not only become Lawful but absolutely necessary These are your Men of Conscience I pray what was the pretended Reason for Excluding His present Majesty Resolved Nemine contradicente That the Duke of York 's being a Papist and the hopes of his coming such to the Crown hath given the greatest countenance and encouragement to the present Designs and Conspiracies against the King and Protestant Religion Resolved That a Bill be brought in to disable the Duke of York to inherit the Imperiul Crown of this Realm Well but one of them tells us Now. Who knows not that they were such as hardly knew how to Pray but out of our Liturgy that attempted to Exclude the Presumptive Heir to the Crown upon the score of his Religion Another follows the cry thus Let him the Answerer be just and he will find the Excluders almost every Sunday at their Parish Churches and if three quarters of them were to pray for their Lives it may be they could better read their Clergy than say their Prayers without the Publick Liturgy The other quarter tho' were gifted Brethren in this Gentleman's esteem whereas with the former they were all Church of England Men. Why the Author of Julian the Apostate will tell you the Addressers with a brave and warm Zeal for the Protestant Religion
and a Protestant Prince generously offered their Lives and Fortunes and the last drop of Blood in defence of his Majesty and the Religion now Established by Law and by the same Lives and Fortunes and last drop of Blood are promised over again to a Popish Successour What is this saith he but clapping cold Snow upon the head of all their Protestant Zeal For he that offers his Service to both these together lists himself under two the most Adverse Parties in the World and is Guelph and Gibeline both at once What Benefit a Popish Successour can reap from Lives and Fortunes spent in defence of the Protestant Religion he may put in his Eyes And what the Protestant Religion gets by Lives and Fortunes spent in the Service of a Popish Successor will be over the left Shoulder The poor Levice was fain to rifle the Alcoran for a simile to represent this Contradiction by Now Gentlemen were these Addressers Church of England Men or Dissenters Was this Book cryed up by Whiggs or Tories It is but five years ago since the Vote pass'd less since Julian was Printed rub up your Memories and try if you can possibly recollect who was for the Exclusion and who was against it Who addressed to the Oxford Members and who to the King after the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and then tell me if your Fore-heads be not a little steel'd to talk at this rate and whereabouts a Dissenters Conscience may be found before we allow it Liberty Well but Liberty of Conscience is the thing they want and must have it if it be possible but all the Craft is in the catching now they know that the Law stands in the way and how to get rid of that is the difficulty First They accost the King and impudently tell him that they good Men never attempted to Exclude him and the consequence is that he must grant them Liberty of Conscience Why if they had never attempted it this was but a Negative Obligation and goes no further than if I should accost a Great Man I never saw before and beg a Favour because I never did him an Injury But here the King knows the contrary that they did attempt to Exclude him and had certainly passed an Act to that purpose if the late King had not with the assistance of the Lords and Loyal true Church of England Men oppos'd and baffled them Well but suppose he would help them to the thing they want there are established Laws in his way and he cannot repeal them but by other Laws and they must pass in Parliament and by the Consent of the Lords and Commons and time enough it had been to have made their Application to him and them in Parliament but of what use are these numerous Pamphlets in the mean time but to fire the Rabble make them ungovernable And suppose the King should to gratifie them do it by his Prerogative without Act of Parliament as the late King did what Reason hath he to expect any other return than his Brother found and that is to be represented forthwith to the Nation as one that designed to introduce Arbitrary Government and Popery and so to have his Throne undermin'd and his Government made unsafe and uneasie And in the mean time have they not gone as far as they could or durst since his Establishment to imbroyl his affairs to chuse those very Men into this Parliament that endeavoured to Exclude him in three last And is there not now Arms bought and Ships put to Sea to the intent to invade his Dominions by those of this Party that have fled for attempting to Murder him at the Rie with his Brother the late King And have they not endeavoured to recommend his Rival to the People here tho' there was no body to back them And after all this is it reasonable that he should loose the Reins and give Liberty to such enraged false perfidious Men as these are who have done what they could to ruin him in spite of all restraint Believe me they expect no such thing from him but make all the impudent applications to make him more odious to the Party by his denial Well they seem to have little reason to expect any favour from the King but what Friends may they expect in the States in this Parliament As to the Church of England Lords and Commons they have laid the Bill of Exclusion at their Doors turn'd over all the Excluders to them and washed their own hands of them as Pilot did of our Saviour's Blood with a See you to it I am innocent Now as this is the most impudent falshood that ever was spoken by Men so it is the basest Reproach the basest dishonour and I doubt not but they will accordingly resent it when time shall serve But many I might say almost all the Commons have been most basely traduced by these Men for sticking to the King against the Excluders many of them were excluded out of the Westminster and Oxford Parliament for Papists Abhorrers and Favourers of Papists or as the word was Adherents to the Papists many of them have been sent for up into Custody turn'd out of the House with Disgrace imprison'd and put to great Charges for their Loyalty all of them have been designed for Slaughter and Ruin as MEN-WORTHY by the WORTHY-MEN And after all this can they expect they will throw up the Laws and put themselves into the power of these Furies Is this the way to bespeak their Pity or obtain their Favour As to the Bishops which make the other part of the upper House what Injury could the Wit of Man devise which in the time of the late Popish Plot they did not heap upon them to make them odious to the King and to the People Did they not dispute their Priviledges in Parliament endeavour to make them appear guilty of the Plot did they not traduce them as this Kings fast Friends and therefore Enemies to the Protestant Religion And in all the late Pamphlets have they not represented them as the worst of Men together with the rest of the Loyal Clergy Take off the thing that pinches take off Prosecution do but change the Saddles and set them both aright and see then whether the Church-men or the Fanaticks and Catholicks will be most Governable That is persecute the Church-men and bestow the Bishoppricks and Church Revenues amongst the Catholicks and Phanaticks and see which will be best qualited best pleased most Humble and most Dutiful Subjects A rare expedient Well but when all other helps fails they expect some assistance from the Roman Catholicks His Grace leads the Dance and shews some kindness for Transubstantiation page the 7th The Reply tells One thing I must say Roman Catholicks have been Loyal in England and Holland and Presbyterians in France and the German Principalities page 22. Well but how have you and your Tribe rewarded them for their Loyalty Another thus As a