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A58811 A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, and Court of Aldermen, at Guild-Hall Chappel, upon the 5th of November, 1673 in commemoration of Englands deliverance from the Gun-powder treason / by John Scott, Minister of St. Thomas's in Southwark. Scott, John, 1639-1695. 1673 (1673) Wing S2065; ESTC R15382 20,135 39

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cutting them off by the Spiritual sword but by the tares cannot be meant persons of wicked lives for then the Text would forbid the punishment of evil doers by not gathering the tares cannot be meant the not cutting them off by the Spiritual sword for then the Text would forbid the Church to excommunicate either wicked livers or obstinate Hereticks And therefore of necessity by the tares must be meant persons of evil Opinions and by the not gathering them the not destroying them by the Temporal sword and this Interpretation is very much favoured by the reason that is given of the Prohibition least ye also root up the wheat with them as if he should have said as for external wickednesses I freely leave them to the lash of humane Judicatures the rectitude or obliquity of them being far more discernable then of inward speculations and Opinions but I will by no means trust you with the punishment of Errors least through interest passion or mistake you should exterminate the Truth with it for you being so fallible and apt to err it is impossible but sometimes you must miss the mark mistake the wheat for tares and hit the Truth though you aime at Error Having thus shewed you how contrary it is to the spirit and genius of Christianity to destroy mens lives upon the score of mere Opinion or Religion I shall now conclude what I have said with one inference from the whole Use From hence I infer the Antichristian tyranny of the Church of Rome who hath fleshed her self with so many slaughters and dyed her Garments so deep in the blood of Christians upon no other score but only their differing from her in some at least disputable and harmless Opinions because upon her bare word they could not believe propositions which to them seemed contrary to sense and reason and Scripture and their Faith had not stomach enough to digest the most fulsome absurdities and swallow the grossest contradictions Blessed Jesu that ever a Church pretending to be thy Spouse should be so forgetful of thy mercies as to spill the blood of so many thousands of Christians upon no other account but because they could not believe her absolution such a Philosophers Stone as to turn attrition into effectual Repentance and a few words of a Priest such a powerful charm as to conjure a man to Heaven in an instant and because thou hast made holiness the sole condition of eternal life durst not depend upon confraternities stations and priviledge-Altars Dei's little offices amulets and such like hallowed baubles because they could not worship Images and pray to God and Saints in the same form of words and durst not run from Scripture to uncertain traditions and from ancient traditions unto new pretences from reasonable services into blind devotions from believing the necessity of inward acts of piety and devotion into a dangerous temptation of resting upon the Opus Operatum the meer numbring of so many Beads and saying of so many prayers that ever Christians should be destroyed by Christians for not believing all those monstrous absurdities which transubstantiation implies that Christs body may be in a thousand places at the same time that it may stay in a place while it is going from it be both in and out of the same place in the same moment that it may come from Heaven to Earth and yet never stir out of Heaven nor be any where in the way between that his whole body is in each crumb of each consecrated wafer and that without being lessened all its parts are crouded up into one single attom and lye all within the compass of a Pin's head though it be 4 foot long that though it be whole and entire in every crumb and there be 10000 of these crumbs in 10000 distant places yet doth it not multiply into 10000 bodies but still remains one and the same now what greater tyranny can there be than to destroy and massacre men for not believing such a mass of palpable contradictions and yet for these and such like causes it is that Rome hath so often washed her barbarous hands in Protestant blood imbroiled the Christian world and by the terrour of her awful thunder-bolts scared Subjects into Rebellion against their lawful Soveraigns and Soveraigns into persecution of their natural Subjects of the truth of which I could give you a thousand forein instances but in complyance with the time and occasion I shall rather chuse to confine my self at home to destroy mens lives upon the score of Religion was a practice never known in England till the time of Henry the 4th who being an Usurper and so liable to many enemies both forein and domestick sought to endear the Pope to him who was then moderator of Christendom by sending him as a token of his love and duty the blood of his enemies and for many years after this was the yearly sacrifice our English Monarks were fain to offer up to the Roman Idol and whensoever through their own weakness they either feared or were forced to flatter him they had no other way to appease the angry Demon but by causing their children to pass through the fire to him and glutting his thirsty vengeance with their blood but when afterwards our English Monarchs threw off the Roman yoak and would no longer be the Popes Leeches he immediately issueth out his Bulls and excommunications to alarum their subjects into a Rebellion against them for immediately upon Queen Elizabeth's coming to the Throne Pope Paul the 4th refuseth to acknowledge her pretending this Crown to be a fee of the Papacy and that therefore it was audaciously done of her to assume it without his leave and because she would not turn out immediately when her great Landlord had given her such fair warning Pope Pius the 5th takes out a Writ of Ejectment issueth out his Bull and deposeth her in which he thus expresserh himself Volumus jubemus ut adversus Elizabetham Angliae Reginam subditi arma capessant it is our will and command that the Subjects of England take up Arms against their Queen upon which followed the Northern Rebellion and sundry private attempts of the Papists to murder her Afterwards Pope Gregory the 15th having two Bastards to provide for one of his own and another of the Emperours he bestowed the Kingdom of England upon the one and that of Ireland upon the other but neither of these prevailing Sixtus the 5th curses her afresh and publishes a crusade against her and bequeaths the whole right of her Dominions to Philip the 2d King of Spain but when neither the Popes bounty nor the blessings of his successors nor the Spanish Arms nor Italian Arts could prevail against God's providence which till the end of her daies pitched its tents about her Pope Clement the 8th seeing there was no other remedy resolved to let her go like a Heretick as she was and to take more care that another Heretick might not succeed
Spur to make them as swift to shed blood as ever For thus at present the French King may allow his Hugonots what liberty he pleases and his Holiness is fain to sit still and be silent being kept in aw by that Puissant Monarch whose Cannon Bullets are grown too strong for his Thunder-bolts But the Case was otherwise with Charles the 9th who being weakened by Faction and impoverished by civil Broils was in a manner necessitated to that Infamous Butchery at Paris to appease the Pope and prevent the Excommunication he threatned him unless he speedily destroyed the Hugonots with Fire and Sword And indeed the Pope is bound both by their Councels and Canons to destroy Hereticks if he can and which is all one to Excommunicate their Favourers for this is decreed in the 4th Lateran Councel that all Hereticks should be Excommunicated and then delivered up to the lash of the Secular Powers but if the Prince or Secular Power being Required and Admonished by the Church do not endeavour to their utmost to exterminate and destroy these Hereticks he shall be presently Excommunicated by the Metropolitan or Arch-Bishop and if within a year he doth not amend his obstinacy shall be signifyed to the Pope Vt ex tunc ipse Vasallos ab ejus fidelitate denuntiet absolutos c. That from that time the Pope may denounce his Subjects absolved from their Allegiance to him and Gregory the 13th in that famous Bull of his Intituled Literae processus lectae die Coenae Domini Excommunicates all Hussites Wiclivites Zuinglians Calvinists Hugonots and other Hereticks together with their Concealers and Favourers and in general all those which desend them so that according to this Bull a Child cannot conceal his Parents nor a Prince Rescue his Subjecte from the Popes Blood-hounds under the Penalty of Excommunication And Pope Julius the 3d in another Bull hath determin'd That if any man examin the Doctrines of the Pope by the Rule of Gods Word and seeing it is different chance to contradict it he shall be rooted out with Fire and Sword Was not this a precious Vicar do you think thus to doom men to slaughter for not believing his own unreasonable dictates before the infallible Oracles of God himself And yet these Bulls of the Popes with the rest of their Decretals Extravagants and Clementines are all inserted in the body of the Canon Law of the Church of Rome aud so are made as good and current Popery as ever was coyned in the Councel of Trent and now after all this me thinks 't is impossible we should be so besorted as to trust to the cruel courtesies of Rome whose Religion breaths nothing but blood and slaughter The cry indeed of the Roman Factors among us is nothing but Toleration and liberty of Conscience and since the Laws have proscribed them for their Treasonous Practices and for swearing themselves Vassals to the Pope whose countermands if they are faithful to their own Principles must evacuate all their obligations to their natural Prince What Tragical Exclamations do they make against Persecution as if they meant to have the monopoly of it that no body might persecute but themselves and though in the Popish Dominions they are as fell and rabbid as so many Lybean Tygers yet no sooner do they set foot upon the English shores but as if there were an Inchantment in the soil the Wolves turn Sheep immediately or at least disguise themselves in Sheeps cloathing but if ever these sweet and merciful Gentlemen get into the Saddle again we shall soon find them in another note and Persecution will be zeal again and Racks and Gibbets Catholick Arguments and there will be no way to illuminate the understandings of us Hereticks like the light of a flaming Fagget For how can we expect it should be otherwise when we reflect upon what is past when the Marian days are yet within our prospect and 't is not half an Age ago since Ireland swam in Protestant blood which was spilt by the instigation of some of these fawning Hypocrites who now declaim forsooth for liberty of conscience and defie persecution and all its works But this pretence its evident is only a coppy of their countenances and without all controversie the bottom of their design is only to perswade us to let them grow till they are strong enough to cut our throats for 't is the subtilty of these Harpys never to show their talons till they have their prey within their reach but if what they pretend were Real Why do they not allow what they plead for and indulg that liberty to dissenters abroad which here they crave for themselves Why do they not as much exclaim against the Spanish Inquision which hath been confirmed by so many Bulls of their own Popes as they do against the English Laws and condemn the barbarous cruelties of the one as well as the milder severities of the other for till they do so we have reason to believe that 't is not against Persecution they exclaim but against being persecuted But in the mean time how can we expect that they should be merciful to our bodies whose Religion damns our souls or that if ever they get uppermost which God prevent they that are so uncharitable now as to shut us out of Heaven should be so charitable then as not to drive us out of the world For this is a Maxim founded upon the experience of all Ages That that Religion which damns us when it is weak will burn us when it is able Wherefore since God in his mercy hath delivered us from the Romish Tyranny let us with thankful hearts extoll and praise his goodness and take heed for the future least by our divisions or apostacies we return again unto that yoak of bondage and since the Emissaries of Rome are now so busily pursuing their old Maxim Divide Impera and blowing the coals of our divisions in hope at last to warm their hands at our flames O that we would now study the ways of peace and reconciliation and not like the miserable Jews fall out among our selves while the Roman is at our Gates for all the time we are contending in the Ship our Enemy is boring a hole in the bottom and while we are fomenting our unhappy differences and tearing our own wounds wider the Priest and Jesuit are at work in our Doublets who ever since their Gunpowder-Treason was defeated have been strewing trains of Wild-fire among our selves to make us our own Executioners and blow us up by our own hands For what else hath been their business among us but only to raise sects and factions and sow discords and Divisions in the Church of England which they know is the only Bulwork of the Protestant Religion among us O would to God we would once heartily attempt to countermine them as we might yet easily do Would we but once lay aside our unchristian passions and prejudices and study mutual compliances and prefer Religion before a Faction and abate some little Punctilioes to the soberer and more governable Dissenters These things if they might obtain amongst us would yet undoubtedly secure us against all the attempts of our Adversaries and Render their most hopeful design desperate and unseasable but if we will be deaf to all the Arguments which our common Interests and dangers suggest to us if we will still squander into Sects and Parties and nothing will serve our turns but the Ruine of that poor Church which for so many years hath been the Shelter and Sanctuary of the Protestant Religion The time may come perhaps when we may dearly repent of our own Follies and remember with tears in our eyes that we had once an opportunity to be happy Let me therefore beseech you even by all that love you bear to the Protestant Religion to your own safety and to the lives and souls of your Posterity to lay aside all Faction Bitterness and Animosity lest by your unchristian Divisions you open the Flood-gates of Popery on your selves and out a gap to let in the Stygian Lake of Ignorance Idolatry Superstition and Blood which God of his Infinite Mercy avert To whom be Honor and Glory and Power and Dominion For ever FINIS ☞ There is lately Printed a Sermon Preached before the Honorable the Military Company at St. Clements Danes July 25. 1673. by the same Author And are to be Sold by T. Tayler at the Hand and Bible on London Bridge Sulp. Sev. Hist. lib. p. 152. Antinin pars 3. Tit. 19. cap. 1. Ger. Busdrag Epist. ad C●rdid Pisar. ●hil●p 1 edict Elizab p. 149. De Rom Pont. lib. ●5 c. 8● T●m 3. in Thom dil 1. q. 1● p. ● De Reg. Inst. l. 1. c. 6. Orat. Sixt. 5th Prited at Paris 1589. Thuan. Hist. lib. 53. Conc. Lat. 4. c. 3. Collect. divers constit pars 3. p. 72. De Vita Ignati l. 3. c 21. p. 335.