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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A41042 Seasonable advice to Protestants shewing the necessity of maintaining the established religion in opposition to popery / by Dr. Fell ... Fell, John, 1625-1686. 1688 (1688) Wing F620; ESTC R6938 21,116 40

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Seasonable Advice TO PROTESTANTS SHEWING The Necessity of Maintaining THE Established Religion In Opposition to POPERY By Dr. Fell late Lord Bishop of OXFORD LONDON Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun at the VVest-end of St. Paul's Church-yard 1688. A Seasonable DISCOURSE SHEWING The NECESSITY of Maintaining THE Established RELIGION In Opposition to POPERY IT is not be doubted but that the Papists against whom the Penal Laws were most sharp are and will be watchful to improve to their utmost advantage His Majesties Declaration of Indulgence wherein he grants Liberty to all sorts of Dissenters from the Church of England to exercise their Religions and suspends the Execution of the Penal Laws in force against them They will now so much the more industriously set themselves to seduce Protestants since they may securely own and defend their Perswasions and even their Priests openly act in all parts their Function which was before no less than Capital in any of His Majesties Subjects If the industry we expect from them meet not with a proportionable zeal in all true Protestants it will not he hard to conjecture what the Success will be when the Attaque is vigorous and industrious and the Defence faint and negligent And therefore I think it cannot be unseasonable to offer a few Motives to the stirring up the zeal and awakening the prudence of all such Protestants as fear God and love the King the Church or themselves as well as to arm them with some Arguments for their own confirmation in the grounds of Protestancy in opposition to Popery II. The first Consideration shall be that of Duty to Almighty God who has made us Members of a Christian Church in which we may assuredly find Salvation if we continue in it and live according to its Rules and Precepts This Christian Church our holy Mother has no other Rule of Faith and Practice than the Holy Scripture of which when less was written than we have now in our hands S. Paul said then they were able to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus It receives for Canonical Scripture neither less nor more than those Books of whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church yielding herein as much to Universal Tradition as any Church in the world much more than the Roman does who obtrudes her particular Dictates and most notorious Innovations for the Fundamentals of the Catholic Faith. It professes the same Faith and no more than what all Christians have made the Badge and Symbol of their Profession namely that which is briefly compris'd in the Apostles Creed explain'd in those others which are called the Nicene and Athanasian and proved by the Holy-Scriptures taken in that sense which is evident in the Text to any indifferent judgment and approved by the consent of the Universal Church the Decrees of the first General Councils and Writings of the Fathers We are Members of a Church where are used the same Sacraments which Christ expresly left in his Church and no other We worship the only God as we are taught to believe in him and no other Our Administration of this Worship and of these Sacraments is in Language understood by all those that are concerned in them being performed with such Rites as are agreeable to the Word of God being for Decency and Order and we use them not as necessary in themselves but in obedience to that Authority which God has given to every particular Church over its own Members Our Discipline likewise is according to the Scripture Rule and Primitive Patterns as far as the loosness of this Age will bear and if this has weakned the Discipline of our Church we believe it has the same effect even in those of the Roman Communion and had no less in the Church of Corinth in the Apostles times And for the Persons who are employed in the Ministry of Gods Worship and Sacraments and in the feeding and governing of the Flock of Christ they are lawfully called to their Office and Ministry and are consecrated and ordained according to the Scriptures and Canons of the Universal Church and we shew the Succession of our Bishops to the Apostles of Christ as fully as it can be shewn in any other Church at this day Lastly We are members of a Church which above all other Constitutions in the Christian World enforces the great duties of obedience and submission to the Magistrate and teaches to be subject not only for Wrath but Conscience sake In all these respects our Church holds a Communion with all true Churches of Christ that are or have been in the World and is together with them a true Member of that holy Catholic Apostolic Church which was from the beginning and will be to the end As we pass not severe censures on other Churches though exceedingly erroneous and are for that charity unworthily repaid by the most criminal that of Rome So are we excommunicated by none that we know of but Her The Pope herein dealing with us as he does with all other Christians in the World namely with most of the European Churches and in other parts except those few whom he has gained of late by his Missionaries The common Cause for which we suffer is nothing else but the defence of the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and of that Liberty wherewith Christ has made us free against those additional Articles which he would intrude into the one and thar Anti-christian Yoke which he would impose on the other The difference between our case and that of our fellow Christians who suffer with us is only this that they are shut out from Heaven as far as the Popes Censures can do it for they know not what many of them even Millions in the remoter parts having never so much as heard of him or his pretensions whereas we konw them too well by woful Experience It is not so much more than an hundred years since that our Ancestors were under his Tyranny which as their Fathers had insensibly drawn upon themselves by their deference to the See of Rome from whence the Saxons had partly their Conversion so they having endured it as long as they were able after many fruitless endeavours to make it tolerable at last with one consent threw the Yoke off their necks Our Church being thus freed from the Usurpations of Rome by them who were deeply immersed in the errors and corruptions of it the best use they could make of their liberty was this to restore the primitive purity of the Christian Faith and Worship which ignorance and interest had fatally depraved Indeed 't was morally impossible that they should pass untained through so many Ages of darkness when the Popes given up to profligate vice seem'd to drive on no other design but for Wealth and Dominion when scarce any in their Communion understood