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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43661	A letter sent from beyond the seas to one of the chief ministers of the non-conforming party by way of reply to many particulars which he sent to the author in a letter of news / by a lover of the established government both of church and state.	Hickes, George, 1642-1715.; Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609-1674.	1674 (1674)	Wing H1855; ESTC R12608	16,745	38

Arts you have so wrought your selves into the esteem of your Disciples that few of them are either so Covetous or so Poor but they will Pinch at home to supply you There are several Orders of Franciscans here who have renounced not only Parsonages but all Temporal Estates and Possessions whatsoever and by their vain glorious Sanctity and Austerities they have got like you such fast hold on the Souls of the People which is the fastest hold of all that they can easily make most of them dispose of their Children cashier their Servants and settle their Estates as they please and by these Tricks do more effectually promote the Interest of Rome than all the Parish-Priests within the Pale of that Church And really when I consider what Influence these Sanctimonions and self-denying Zealots have o're all families in all places where they live how hey steal away the Hearts of the People from their Parish-Priests and drain their Congregations and how the deluded People had rather give them the worth of a shilling than the dues of two pence to their own Cures it makes me often run the Parallel between you and them and think what a Politick and Gainful Pretence you have got to renounce your Livings for to secure your Consciences and to Preach the Word like the Primitive Apostles when God knows 't is not out of love to the People but to your selves And I protest to you were I a man to be maintained by the Pulpit and consulted my Profit more than the Goodness of my Cause I should take the same courses that you do I should rather be Mr. M. than Dr. A. of Plymouth and should chuse the plentiful Income of that dull Zealot Dr. Manton before that of his most Learned and Religious Successor of Covent-Garden But though you live very well and better indeed than most of the Ministers of the Church yet the mischief of it is you are uncapable of Dignities which makes you such Aërians and upon all occasions openeth your Throats as wide as Sepulchres against the Bishops and the Church You know what an History of Bishops Mr. Pryn hath wrote and what a fair Collection the Learned Smec hath taken out of him as if when a Bishop is defective either in Piety Learning or the skill of Government it were not the deplorable unhappiness but the fault of the Church of England Should an Heathen or Mahumetan make such an Historical Collection of Scandalous Christians either in this or former Ages you would not be perswaded for all that to prefer the Alcoran before the Gospel or the most exalted Paganism whatsoever before the Christian Religion Therefore wise and sober men will make no Inference but this from such a malicious enumeration of Particulars that corruptions will creep into Government notwithstanding all the care that can be used to the contrary and that by the favour of Princes who hear with other mens ears and often receive undeserved Characters of men sometimes Ambitious sometimes Ignorant and sometimes Slothful Imprudent or Debauched Persons will be Preferred to the most Honourable Dignities in the Church But this as often as it happens is the misery of the Church of England which all true Church men lament though the men of the short Cloke take all such occasions to expose her to the scorn of the common People who judg by Sense and not by Reason and who are taught by you to make no distinction between the Bishops and the Church But were all her Bishops the best Christians the best Scholars and the best Governors in the World and should the Royal Hand place her Mytres on the Heads of none but Jewel's Whitgift's Andrews's Hall's Usher's Morton's Taylor 's and Sanderson's yet that Unchristian Spirit of Envy and Discontent which informs the Non-conformists would still flie upon her with open mouth like Beasts upon the Saints of old condemned to the Amphitheater and make her as she hath already been for almost forty years a Spectacle to God to Angels and to Men. The wicked Lives of Scandalous Bishops and Priests if there be any such are her sad misfortune but cannot justifie the Schism you are guilty of who are bound to hear even them as much as the Jews were bound to hear the Scribes and Pharisees those Hypocrites that sate in Moses's Chair And in that deplorable state of the Jewish Church when the Priests and Prophets were both alike corrupted and called by the Holy Spirit Dumb and greedy Dogs yet it had been unlawful to make a separation and set up other Altars against that which God who was their King had set up I cannot but mind you of the Schism of Jeroboam who by dividing the Church as God was pleased to divide the Kingdom into two parts made Israel to Sin But to insist on the Samaritan Secession and write all that is necessary to discover and aggravate the damnable Nature of Schism would require as much more Paper as I have bestowed and so make me as tedious again as I fear I have already been Besides it would oblige me to answer Mr. Hales's Treatise of Schism with whose leaves you vainly endeavor to cover your shame And I had indeed a year agoe undertaken that easie task but that a Western Gentleman to whom I discovered my Intentions told me That a Friend of his had already begun that good Work so that I hope it is Printed by this time And if either that or this or any thing else a thousand times better than I am able to write may prove effectual to reclaim you from Schism I shall be as glad as to see some other of our Friends reformed from Drunkenness Swearing and Uncleanness which are very grievous and dreadful Sins but yet not more damnable in their Nature nor more destructive to the Christian Religion nor more deeply rooted in the Soul of man than that of Schism From which I pray God by the Power of his Grace to Preserve me and Reform you through Jesus Christ our Lord to whose Protection I commit you and rest Your most Affectionate Cousin And humble Servant Saumur May 7. 1674.

one or two short Chapters in the beginning of Mr. Smith's Discourses concerning these Distempers of the Soul and you shall find what I have said proved with more Demonstration than you can gainsay and with more Plainness and Perspecuity than I am confident you would wish to see But besides the Schism and Enthusiasm the Bloudy Wars which you formerly made in the State under pretence of the Glory of God and the Reformation of the Reformed Religion have given many Inconsiderate men occasion to suspect that all Religion like that of most of your Leaders is but a Politick Engine which men use to make themselves Popular and Powerful that they may afterwards act with good colour whatsoever their Interest shall suggest And furthermore to consider That the great Pretenders of the Spirit and Power of the Christian Religion which with respect to Magistrates teacheth nothing but to obey or suffer should notwithstanding Preach up Rebellion against their Rightful Prince Fight Him from Field to Field Remove Him from Prison to Prison and at last most Barbarously put Him to Death is such an Absurdity against the Principles of right Reason so repugnant to the Laws of our own Nation and so inconsistent with the Peaceable Doctrine of the Gospel that besides the Atheists it hath made it hath and ever will constrain men of honest Principles and just Resentments to Persecute you with Satyrs and Exclamations to the end of the World I had not here presented that Tragical Scene of the King's Murther but that I have had so many unpleasant Occasions to hear our Nation Reproached with the Scandal and Dishonour of that Inhumane Fact Particularly It was my bad fortune to be at a station in Paris where there were met about two hundred Persons to read the Gazets at that very same time when that of England came full charged with the News of Burning the Pope in Effigie at London This Feat did at first surprize that Roman Catholick concourse of People but after a little recollection they ceased to wonder saying in every company as we passed along It is not so strange that the English Devils should do this who formerly Murthered their King And another time it was my ill luck also to be at the same place when the London Gazet brought us the News That the House of Lords had taken into consideration the growth of Atheism in our Nation Whereupon some French Gentlemen of my acquaintance seriously enquired of me the Causes of so much Atheism amongst such a Thinking and Solid People I assigned the same Reasons which I have written above besides some others not so fit to be mentioned as the most probable Causes thereof And as I hope I did not misinform them so I am confident I did not unjustly charge you in any particular especially with the Murther of the King For there were no Accessaries in the Murther of that Sacred Person neither was it the last stroke only that fell'd the Royal Oak but you and the Independents like the two Sacrilegious Priests of Jupiter are equally guilty of the Crime the one for Binding the direful Victim and the other for putting the Knife to his Throat But to be short where I am so unacceptable I 'le conclude my Argument with a Fable A Principal Ship which for many years had been Sovereign of the Seas was at last Attacked by a Tempestuous Wind which the Devil raised and notwithstanding all the Help that could be made to save her was driven by the force of that malignant Wind and split upon a Rock The very same instant she dashed upon the Rock the Wind ceased and being afterwards cursed by the Sea-men for the Wrack of the Royal Charles for so the Capital Vessel was called answered You charge me most unjustly my Friends It was not I but the Rock as you saw that split your Ship The Moral of this Parable is very obvious and if the Application thereof or any thing else that I have written may conduce to awaken your Conscience and reclaim you from Schism I shall think my pains well bestowed But if you and your seditious Brethren will still persevere to assault the Church on one hand as fast as the Romish Priests do undermine her on the other her daies are like to be but few and evil and except God encline the Heart of our Magistrates to put the Laws in Execution against them and find some effectual means to reduce you you may live to see her Ruine accomplished which you both alike desire and expect How numerous you are the World can ghess and if the Accounts which we receive from the Fathers of Intelligence of several Orders be credible there are at least three thousand of them which find entertainment and success in our Nation But in the mean time till her hour is come she struggleth against both like her Saviour against the Pharisees whose true Disciples in part you both are they representing those sworn Enemies of the Gospel by the Cabala of their ridiculous and impious Traditions and you representing them in their Hypocrisie Pride Envy Evil-speaking morose and censorious Dispositions c. which are Sins scarce consistent with Humanity much less with Grace as likewise in observing many Fasts and making long Prayers with design not to serve God but to delude the People And therefore I wonder not that you are such malignant Enemies to the Church of England since that Pharisaical spirit which reigneth so much amongst you is a wicked Pusillanimous spirit that affects to be seen in the Head of Parties and Dictate amongst the Ignorant and loves as much to Rule as it hates to Obey But would you once be so sincere as to subdue your Pride lay aside your Prejudice inform your Ignorance and forsake your dearly beloved interest for the Truth it would not be long ere we should see you joyn with the Church of England without troubling our Senators to bring you in with an Act of Comprehension Your Pride appeareth in Heading of Parties and in the Pleasure you are seen to take in the Multitudes that run after you and in your boasting that without you the Souls of People would starve for want of knowledg Your Prejudice is an effect of your Pride and discovers it self together with your Ignorance in not submitting to those Invincible Reasons which you cannot answer And as for your Interest the greatest Paradox of all that is evident enough to me who have so often heard many of you glorifie your selves in the Number and Riches of your Followers boast of their Affection to your sacred Persons and brag of the great Sums you have collected in your Congregations which makes the King's Chappels as you arrogantly call your Conventicles better places than most of the Churches of which He is Patron And therefore never complain that you live either worse or at greater uncertainties than you did before For by your pretensions to Poverty and Sufferings and by other unworthy