Selected quad for the lemma: power_n
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A37363
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A Seasonable advice to all true Protestants in England, in this present posture of affairs discovering the present designs of the papists : with other remarkable things, tending to the peace of the church, and the security of the Protestant relion [sic] / by a sincere lover of his King and countrey.
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M. D.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing D63; ESTC R18433
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50,826
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67
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from the attempts of all Enemies and dangers That this may cause a variety in Kingdoms and Nations agreeable to the Government in the State to the nature and inclinations of the people and several other circumstances which are to be weighed in this Case That a Government established in a Nation by the publick Authority if not contrary to Gods Word and Will ought not to be resisted by Christian Subjects That every individual Believer must not presume to censure and murmur against the appointed Order in Church or State or meddle with the Princes Office and Power That the Government in the Church belongs to the Sovereign Prince under God as well as in the State and that it is a dangerous presumption for every private person to venture to contradict the Laws which such Lawful Princes think convenient in their wisdom to settle in a Church in these and such like truths I suppose most of our Non-Conforming Brethren will agree with us But nevertheless the Presbyterian will be governed by his Presbytery and Lay-Elders in a subordination to Assemblies and Synods The Independent will acknowledge no Orders in the Church but what are appointed in his Congregation and both refuse Obedience to Episcopal Authority though suitable to the former Rules and Maxims Episcopacy recommends to us in Gods Church a Monarchical Authority Presbytery would have an Aristocratical mixed with Democracy the Independent pleads for a Democratical To what purpose is this adoe about Government it concerns not our Salvation in case we behave our selves justly righteously and soberly in this present world in case we can but lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty As this is the chief duty of every individual Christian it should be our endeavour and purpose in all our actions The Presbyterian forsook Episcopacy and thought to mend his condition under that Government he gave an Example to the Independent to forsake Presbytery with hopes of living with more ease in a new Government never heard of in the Primitive Church unless it be amongst Hereticks and Enemies of Gods Truth for the establishing of this strange Order in this Church they lay down most dangerous Doctrines contrary to Gods Word and all Reason for instance That every Christian upon the account of being so a real Christian a good man Separation no Schism in opposition to an excellent Sermon of that Worthy Divine Mr. Sharp and a Believer may be no member of Christs visible Church and is not bound to joyn in external Communion with it where it may be had That a suspicion or a bare persuasion of sin in the publick practices commanded by Authority is sufficient to free both Minister and People from their Obedience and License them to Act contrary to the same That Christians are not subject to Ecclesiastical Laws unless they be contained in the Holy Scripture That men may be Christians without any subjection to Authority or dependency upon Christs Church And such like Doctrines directly contrary to Christs great design in mans Redemption which S. Paul tells us was Union Ephesians ii 16. That he might reconcile all unto God in one Body by the Cross I would have these my Brethren know that as man was created in respect to a Society he is also redeemed with the same relation for we cannot think that this good Saviour hath freed him from sin and the Devils power to live by himself for ever as a wild Anchoret in the Desart and Mountains he hath enlightned his followers with that spirit and given them those principles that tend to Union and Communion Therefore St. Paul saith in 1 Cor. xiv 33. That God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace as in all the Churches of the Saints What means the Apostle by Peace is it that every individual Christian should be scattered upon the face of the Earth and upon the least suspicion or ill grounded prejudice abominate all correspondency in the Publick Worship of God that he should look upon his brethren redeemed by the same bloud governed by the same spirit and animated with the same hopes with a supercilious countenance and fly from them as from a Wolf or a Devil Yet these are the consequences of some of the Independent principles But I suppose it no difficult matter to reclaim most of them from such pernicious opinions which have proved as destructive to their private Congregations as they have to the Church of England for they tend to encourage disorder and to license men to cast off all respects to all Governours and Government of what sort soever But methinks if we had that honour for our Nation as becomes us and as other people have for theirs we should not be more fond of the new modes in Government and Gods Worship recommended to us by our Neighbours and imposed upon us by a Scotch Frolick than of the antient and wise method and Government established amongst us by our Forefathers Why must the new fangles and fashions of strangers affect us more than the discreet constructions of our own Christian Rulers Though the people of our Nation alter often their habits methinks in so serious a business as Religion Government and Gods Worship we should not be so changeable as we are in our apparel I know the rigid Independents are accused for denying the appointed maintenance to Ministers Tythes the encouragement of Learning and Gods Service they are accused for not allowing any set forms of Prayer not so much as the Lords Prayer for not admitting any to the Ordinances but such as are of their own fraternity for denying the Magistrates Power over the Godly See Mr. Baily's Dissuasive from the Errors of the times for allowing the killing of all opposers But these wicked Doctrines I suppose are not maintained by the most moderate Independents who differ from us chiefly in the Government of the Church in all other things it is likely that they may be brought to comply with us though at present they give themselves the liberty to abuse and carp at many other innocent circumstances of the Religion and Worship of the Church of England I find my self engaged in this place to give a Reply to a grand Objection against this Advice and call to Conformity which seems to be allowed by St. Paul in his Fourteenth Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans and which is commonly pleaded as an excuse by our Non Conforming Brethren That they extreamly suspect our practices and worship to be sinful and therefore they are not bound to act against a doubting Conscience by joyning with us in that which they conceive to be unlawful Agreeable to S. Paul's words in another occasion and case He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of faith for whatsoever is not of faith is sin This passage is but a weak Plea for Non-Conformity in England for the Romans case and ours differ in these particulars Their Controversies were concerning
buzing in the ears of the simpler sort the danger of unity the corruption in the Church the glory of Constancy in Religion and their ingagements for the Covenant and by upbraiding the more knowing party with the Peoples discourses of the Ministers bad Lives unfaithfulness unconstancy and the danger their Souls were in if by their too hasty compliance to that which their former Interest obliged them to exclaim against they gave them a slender Opinion and an Atheistical impression of Religion it self To these they represented Conformity as the most intolerable burthen and the heaviest yoke could be imposed upon them by Authority and our Religion of the Church of England the nearest in affinity to Popery full of Superstition if not of Idolatry They accused all our zealous endeavours to bring the People to Unity to be Persecutions of the good Servants of God and every step that we made was slandered and discredited by these men who had a design to advantage themselves by our Divisions To the Governours in the Church and State they would exclaim against the wickedness and danger of Conventicles and Non-Conformity They represented all the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas as incouragers of our dissensions by their Examples and Government without Bishops Calvin and all his Calvinists were Traitors Schismaticks Hereticks Enemies of the Publick Peace promoters of Rebellion insufferable in a Common-Wealth dangerous Conspirators against the Kings Person and Government and what not With these and such like Notions they infected the minds of many of our Clergy with an unjust prejudice against all the Religious Churches of God beyond the Seas and had not a very worthy Divine Dr. Durel cleared their innocency by representing to the publick their disallowance of our frivolous discords and their acknowledgment of us for their Brethren and our Liturgy and Government to be altogether agreeable with Gods Word and Will we should have proceeded to a publick Excommunication However these impressions given to the Rulers in Church and State cast oyl into the fire angred the minds of our zealous Governours and drew from them those severe resolutions which have increased our discords and caused many to imagin more in Non-Conformity than really there is for as some sort of Wounds putrifie and increase the more they are handled so the Divisions of our Church about quid dities Indifferencies Trifles and Vanities would have vanished by degrees the less we had minded them But as we had our Enemies on both sides acquainted with our temper and interests they would not suffer the one to conform nor the others to admit them upon more moderate terms than a strict compliance with all the inconsiderable punctilio's which the Publick Peace and Gods Glory might easily dispense with as well as Religion Government and Conformity it self In all the publick Disputations too much Gall proceeded from the Jesuits hatred of us both and their apprehension of our sensibleness of our own Interest and of an union between those that differed for the most part but in shadows However they laboured to raise such a mist between us and our Brethren that we could not see to joyn together in one body and worship All this while they advanced some of their own disguised fellows into Offices and Places of Trust and when they saw any person able to serve their turn they would befriend him with their assistance in his promotion and discourage all other persons When I lived near London a Jesuit an ingenious and a good Linguist knowing my Skill in that and other sorts of Learning and how much I had been neglected in the Church though I had done good Service both at home and abroad was sent purposely to search into the Principles of my Religion whether I would favour Popery could I have dissembled with him I might have had a considerable preferment by the Jesuits means but I chose rather to abide in a mean condition and to be confined to the remotest wilderness of the Land to a small Vicarage of about sixty pounds per annum there to bury my Talents than to employ them in the Service of the Devil and the Pope But all these indeavours at home tended to the promotion encouragement and increase of the Popish Religion but amongst a few and such as dared not to discover what they were And though it had got so much credit that many ingenious and good Protestants could not endure to hear the Pope or Papists spoken against or blamed for superstition or any of their practices This could not bring to pass the grand Design without a more powerful endeavour and stronger assistances for that purpose as soon as the Court of Rome was perfectly reconciled with the French King and that he had consented to gratifie them to have the Monument of their Disgrace taken away and all remembrances of his Ambassadors affront and their weaknesses pulled down in Rome they resolved to make use of his Assistance and to govern all Europe if not all the World by a Triumvirat I shall not trouble my Reader with any part of this Plot relating to Foreign Affairs only as it looks upon us and concerns us here in England It is sufficiently known that the Court of Rome pretends to an Universal Monarchy and to hold by the Power of the Keys what the same City governed heretofore by the Sword The Jesuits likewise have the same aim but with a pretended subordination to the Pope and his Authority a meer pretence covered over with the Oath of blind Obedience for this crafty and devilish Society if it once get a Head will as easily forget their Allegiance to the Pope as they do now that to their most lawful Princes under God But neither the Jesuits nor the Pope of Rome now that all their Cheats have been discovered to the World in these latter Ages through the Preaching of the Gospel can carry on or compass so great a Design without other assistance therefore they resolved together to employ the old Policy of the antient Romans in Conquering Kingdoms which was to subdue them with their Weapons and by the Courage of their own Inhabitants Of all the Monarchs subject to the Roman See in the end of Alexander's Papacy none seemed so powerful in men and money as the French A young Prince Lord of a flourishing Kingdom and of a great Continent but of an Aspiring mind that would readily entertain the first proposals of larger Dominions and other Empires Therefore the Jesuits and the Pope agreed to tempt him with the Glories of the World and to make him the Universal Monarch if he would encourage the Popish Religion and declare himself an Enemy to the Protestant Profession in and out of his Kingdom This same Proposal had been made to Philip the Second of Spain when that Kingdom was in its Grandeur and in order to its accomplishment he gratified the Pope with the Expulsion and Banishment of the Moors out of his Kingdom with a Bloody War