Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n
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A33729
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A reply to the Answer of the man of no name to His Grace the Duke of Buckingham's paper of religion, and liberty of conscience by G. C. ...
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Care, George.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing C504; ESTC R6951
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14,712
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36
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establish in the World Wonders for Miracles come from Heaven Instead of this old Sores are daily rubb'd fresh and new impressions of former Tragedies are thrown abroad to prejudice us against the means of our own Peace and Glory God if he pleases avert the consequences of our own bitterness and Animosity His last Head is about Toleration p. 25. though included in his second this he labours with his usual pains 'T is neither says he good Divinity nor good Politicks and of this he is as certain as if he found a Mare 's Nest The first Reason why it is not good Divinity is That false Religions in a Christian Dress would then be Tolerated to the injury of Christian Religion and Mens Souls p. 26. But he does not consider how many he will Damn by Hypocrisie But in that perhaps I am out he may not think that a Damnable Sin and that it is better be an Hypocrite than a Dissenter though One thinks he is in the right and the Other knows he is in the wrong and so one of St. Paul's true Hereticks viz. self-Condemned Be that as it will Jesus Christ is against his Divinity that is Lord of the true For he commands That the Tares grow with the Wheat till Harvest which he interprets the End of the world and Great Judgment And forbad Fire to be so much as desired to be call'd from Heaven to hurt those that did not own his blessed Messengers in their great Doctrine of the Kingdom he sent them to preach For Toleration'â— being bad Politicks let him allow me the Liberty he takes with the Noble Peer I defend and I will send him upon an Errand that shall determine the Controversie presently Let him go to the Prince of Orange whose Ancestor begun the Glory of that Country with it to the Princes of the Empire And if this French King will be Impartial ask him If greater Feats were done without than with a Toleration So far is it from being dangerous to Princes And if Opinions were yet worse than they are there cannot in my judgment accrue any danger to the Government that Tolerates them For First the Professors of them have which they could be thought to Plot to get but will never Plot to lose And Secondly if any such people could be there are or may be Laws enough to Crush and punish the least Appearance of Disorder And under favour Publick Assemblies are so far from being dangerous thaâ— truly consider'd they are the security of the Government What makes Men Dangerous First they cann't help their Dissent for Faith is not in a Man 's own power Next so soon as he declares it the Law cuts him off from the Favour and Protection of the Magistrate Is it then the Man that makes himself dangerous or is he made dangerous for that Dissent And if that be it 't will not be hard to determine how a Dissenter comes to be dangerous Forcing Men to Religions is as if it were in a Man's power to use his Conscience as he can his Money In that case I would be on the side of the Penal Laws But if a Man cann't believe as he will and less as other Men believe and 〈◊〉 yet be safe to the Government don't make him â—â—safe under it and I 'll warrant he does no harm And this I think may be done I conclude That Toleration is so far from being an Enemy to Religion and Monarchy That it gives God his due prevents Hypocrisie and restores Society instead of Unity And by an united Affection Purse and Hands Renders our King Great and Terrible I now wait upon his Three Questions the First has Four in the belly of it p. 34 35. First If Christ did not believe Soveraign Power might maintain the order of Society by Rewards and Panishments Truly I don't know his Belief nor how suitable it might be to him to believe being the Object of ours But he commanded it though with a salvo to the Religion he came to Institute They were his Sheep 't was his Kingdom The next Query is to the Duke If he haâ— consider'd That spiritual Punishments are far more rigorous than Temporal ones I believe as much as this Gentleman has Whether Temporal be less than Eternal But what of all that Why next to follow his blow he asks If Jesus Christ then has not used greater force to compel Men to his Religion than all the Powers of the Earth have done But if it were so I am of the poor Welch-man's mind Let her alone till 〈◊〉 day comes And of St. Taffy's too I had â—ather fall into the hands of God than Man But is this proper just and adequate Christ punishes Spiritual Faults with Spiritual Punishments Ergo The Powers of the Earth ought to punish the same Faults with Temporal and Corporal Punishments such as Prisons Fines Exiles and Death But in the next place I don't think he has out-done the Heathen and some Christian Persecutions the Reason of both consider'd For he decides the Controversie by Good Works They by Opinions He cryes Come ye well-doers there are his Sheep Go ye Workers of Iniquity there be his Goats But Conformity makes an Ill-Man Grateful and Non-Conformity a Good-Man Hateful here Good Works don't determine the point as at Christ's Judgment Howbeit it is monstrous to argue That Men should be twice punish'd for the same Offence by the Magistrate here and Christ hereafter This is held unequal among Just Men in all Governments But 't is no matter let Zeal or Interest Christen it and it s well enough for a Papist or a Phanatick But if this Gentleman were as much under their power as they are now under his Censures and should they use him as the provokes the Civil Magistrate to treat them I am of the mind he would think and call it too Anti-Christian To this Second main Question in substance Answer'd before Whether there being an hundred Monarchies happy without Toleration and Liberty of Conscience to one Republick that allows it with Restriction whose future Fate we are ignorant of and whether that may not in time prove its Ruin It be not an hundred to one that Monarchy shall be more flourishing safe and lasting without a Toleration than with it To this I say he makes the ground of it Fact and that 's false There is not only no such thing as an hundred Monarchies that have been happy without it but more have been happy with than without it All the Eastern Monarchies almost generally give it with success Next the French Monarohy was happier in Henry the IV. than Charles the IX and Ours in Queen Elizabeth than in King Henry the VIII for though Her 's was not a Reign of Liberty yet of less severity than His. He makes it Republican and knows not what he says for as his story of Monarchies is untrue so that of Republicks a Fiction there being Two Monarchies to One Republick that gives it What
Cowards fight thus stoutly Now Sir says he here I could have you Sir and there I could have you Sir and if I strike you Sir infallibly I hit you Sir and if I hit you Sir you 'll feel it Sir Are not you of my mind Sir This Gentleman wanted something and though the Duke be no Minor he has a mind to play the Senior upon him and use him so And what a fine time he would have to be Ward to such a Jewel Such Coxcombs I have seen in my time for there is not so true a Mark of that Animal as Officiousness upon Mistake to praeter do or over-do a thing Look you Sir upon my word Sir you are out Sir you mean this Sir I know your meaning Sir as well as if I were in you Sir alas Sir there is a better way far Sir and then Sir you don't hit it neither Sir for Sir if you aim at the end Sir you must aim at the means Sir and that I pretend to know Sir as well as any Man Sir and therefore Sir by your favor Sir if I had been to have follow'd your blow Sir I would have done no body knows what Sir Gramarcy Doctor 'T is pity to think what pains some Men take to play the Fool. His second great Head and little Wit is about the Anti-Christianism of Persecution opposing the Duke's Notion of it thus pag. 17 18 19 20. And first he says That though to punish Professors of the true Religion for that only whilst inoffensive in all things to the Civil Government is real Persecution and truly Anti-Christian as that of the Primitive Christians by the Heathen Roman Emperors yet to punish Dissenters as Papists and Phanaticks is not so because they are in the wrong and offensive to the Government This in a Lump as he calls it and perhaps a little better collected than his was In all which he begs the Question of the Roman Emperors for the Christians and of the Dissenters for their Adversaries though upon differing terms For the Heathen Emperors had Antient Rites to plead and the Establish'd Law of the Empire against the progress of Christianity And that is all this Gentleman has said here for himself and against them For he undertakes not to prove the Points Controverted true against the Dissenters but urges the knâ—cking Argument of the Jews We have a Law and by our Law he ought to die Nay he sends the Duke to Lewis the Fourteenth pag. 29. to ask If it be safe Tolerating another Religion than his own By which he determines the case against the Persecuted Protestants there lest their Indulgence should exemplarily make way for ours to the Dissenters here Is not this a dainty Protestant that can cherish Cruelty against Men of his own Religion abroad rather than not act it at home upon Dissenters This is to make Religion a Politick Interest and to Answer Worldly ends A greater Argument for Atheism than any he has offer'd against it The Primitive Christians had died Idolaters upon this Principle For Authority not Conviction with him all along concludes the Point He begs the Question of the Dissenters for he argues nothing about the grounds of Dissent but the Law 'T is the Religion by Law Establish'd And why not by the Bible but that it yields not to it the present Advantages of Force and Worldly Authority Now as he says If I had been to Dispute them and follow his blow I would have Evinc'd their Error before I would have pronounc'd my Judgment But they are Factious Seditious and dangerous to the Government therefore severe Laws were made against Papists Priests and Jesuits on the one Hand and Phanaticks on the other Suppose this were as he frowardly Clamors Is it to be thought that they would be dangerous if they were Easie and so endanger themselves they know better And we see this Gentleman fears the Church's Receeding in her Loyalty if there be but Indulgence to Dissenters making her Eye evil if the Governments be good Pray what then would she do if she were Persecuted as they are Can more with Justice be expected from Hereticks and Schismaticks than from the Orthodox If they were more patient I should begin to fear they would be quickly more Orthodox too But I cannot tell how to think that Men in their Wits would forfeit Ease when they have it though to get it they might be Indiscreet And one thing I must say Roman Catholicks have been Loyal in England and Holland and Bresbyterians in France and the German Principalities So that 't is not necessarily true they are not Seditious as they are Dissenters Men go by their Interests The Gentlemen that Tore the King's Declaration of Indulgence from him were high Church-men and they opposed his Political Capacity to his Natural on purpose to overthrow that Act of Grace by which distinction the late Civil War was made so that 41. overtook 73. or that return'd to 41. And 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 And though this Jehu drives so furiously upon Dissenters on that Account if he will think which I fear he seldom does he will find that an Heir is but a Subject and the same Law governs properly a-like in this Kingdom to all Ranks of Subjects And that some of the same Gentlemen that formerly shook small Folks Property for Non-Conformity had lately a mind to Sacrifice the present King 's for Dissent Wherefore let us make Men easie take Temptations out of their way and not lay stumbling-blocks before weak or peevish people nor pinch them with those Burdens or Yokes that our Fathers could hardly bear and we need not doubt a Friendly success It is by this Nameless Author Objected in a Career of Criminations That this may suit a Republick pag. 28 29. but is dangerous to a Monarchy But not half so much in my opinion as his Objection is For doubtless Monarchy has as extended and saving a bottom to live upon as any Republick in the World nay rather the Power of more Mercy Favour and Indulgence For the Number of Subjects is the Glory and Strength of a King and that which makes the People easie makes the Government so to the Monarch 'T were lavish to prefer a Common-Wealth to make it more capable of good to the various conditions of Mankind than Monarchy It is therefore his little skill in Politicks as well as Religion that makes him quote the practice of the French King p. 29. for no body knows yet the consequence His Cake is but Dough still 'T is early day with the Project See if his Son ay if He don't feel it yet For Uniformity is a mean Recompence for a thin and poor Country What might not an Union of Interests and Affections under so great a Prince as we have recover and