Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A40089
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A sermon preached before the judges, &c. in the time of the assizes in the Cathedral church at Gloucester on Sunday Aug. 7, 1681 published to put a stop to false and injurious representations / by Edward Fowler.
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Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing F1716; ESTC R10669
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23,348
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42
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of Ierusalem among whom there were never such desperate Feuds as when they were all surrounded with the Roman Armies Those who by their causeless forsaking of our Communion have greatly strengthned the hands of our Enemies are so far from being yet made sensible of the mischief of Separation and the most pernicious consequences of Dividing that many of them are now grown fiercer than ever as appears by their late Books and Pamphlets c. against that Church which Rome hath always found to her cost the most impregnable Bulwark in all Christendom against Popery And on the other hand for I will not be taxed with Partiality there are too too many among our selves that do little consult our Churches interest nor consequently the interest of the Protestant Religion but greatly disserve both by their intemperate heats and branding all with the names of Fanaticks and Presbyterians who are not come up to their pitch and in all things just of their complexion although they be as obedient to both their Civil and Ecclesiastical Superiors as themselves are no less truly Regular and Conformable We ought by Love and Sweetness to encourage men all we can this is to act like the Disciples of the mild and most lovely temper'd Jesus and not by Sowreness and Censoriousness tempt those to depart from us who would gladly still hold Communion with us And where we find an inclination towards returning in any that have departed from us we should be glad to meet them half-way in order to the bringing them over to us And it becomes us likewise to make a difference between Peaceable and Modest Dissenters from us and those who are Turbulent Seditious and Factious and not wind up all together in the same bottom I may add also that there are God knows too too many Debauchees in the Nation who would be thought great Champions for the King and the Church but do infinite prejudice to both by the mad and frantick expressions of their zeal Who do mighty honour to Fanaticism by charging all with it that run not with them to the same excess of Riot One would suspect that these whatsoever they pretend do really design nothing more than to make both the King and the Church as friendless as they are able Heaven help them both should they ever be so unfortunate which God forbid as to stand in need of this sort of people If indeed Huffing and Healthing Cursing and Damning and giving vile names would do the business then let them alone to protect and defend the King and Church but former experience hath assured us that those are the best weapons that most of them can boast of their being good at A Neighbouring King and the Church of Rome may wish God's blessing on the hearts of these Gentlemen but our own King whom God preserve and the Church of England have little reason to Con them thanks for any service they are like to do them King Charles the First of Glorious Memory was very sensible of the Consequence of such mens assistance which proved fatal to him The goodness of whose Cause did sink under the burden of their sins according to the sad Presage of our excellent Chillingworth in a Sermon Preached to the Court at Oxford And if ever his Majesty and the Church should be again set upon by Scribes Pharisees God grant us better assistance than that of Publicans Sinners But I wonder in my heart what should make any Debauched and Prophane people pretend the least zeal for the Church of England there being no Church in the world that more condemns all unrighteousness and sin or which would be more severe against wicked livers were she in circumstances to put in execution her own Discipline Which she is not like to be so long as the Civil Magistrate is so remiss in executing according to their Oaths those excellent Laws that are Enacted against Drunkenness Swearing Uncleanness Profanation of the Lord's day and other wicked Practices And I add that Popery and Fanaticism will both undoubtedly still grow upon us be we never so zealous against both whilst that Debauchery and Prophaneness which have so miserably overspread the Nation do still escape scot-free and go unpunish'd I cannot but observe one thing more that 't is an uncouth and ridiculous Spectacle to behold wild Fanaticks and prophane people that call themselves Church of England men who are far from deserving that Title whether they be Clergy or Laity contesting together and falling foul upon one another One would be tempted upon this occasion to take up the Grand Vizier Kuperlées blunt reply to the French Ambassador upon his Accosting him with the news of the Spanish Armies being routed by the French viz. What matter is it to me whether the hog worries the dog or the dog the hog so my Masters head be but safe To Conclude 'TILL I see on the one hand a far greater sense of the hatefulness of Schism and of breaking the Peace and Unity of the Church of which all good people did heretofore express the greatest Abhorrence and Detestation And till I see on all hands more sincere endeavours to put away Anger Wrath Malice and Bitterness Till I see that the several divided Parties among us are more inclinable to unite heartily with us of the Church of England and We again with them so far forth as unanimously to oppose Popery that designs the destruction of us all Which all but hot-spurs that never allow themselves leisure to think a wise or sedate thought must needs know to be absolutely necessary to our mutual preservation at this time And it would be well would we herein learn of the Papists who notwithstanding the great differences that are among them also can joyn together against Protestants Till I see again that our Zeal against Popery is generally so well tempered as not to endanger our running headlong into the other extreme that of Confusion which will no question end in Popery Till I see that we hate Popery for its Disloyalty as well as for its Idolatrous and Cruel Principles and Practices Till I see also that our opposition to Poper y ariseth more generally from a sense of the infinite scandal it brings upon the Holy Religion of our Blessed Saviour and it s wofully depraving the Souls of men as well as from our concern for our Temporal interest Till I moreover see that Zeal in any sort of people whatsoever is not accounted sufficient to give them the Reputation of Good Protestants or Good Church-men so long as they are bad Christians and their Conversations declare them no hearty Friends to any Religion And in a word till I see that our Excellent Reformed Religion that the pure and undefiled Religion of the Church of England hath a more powerful influence upon the Lives and Spirits of those who profess themselves Anti-papists and Anti-sectarians I say till I see these things I shall for my part be far from concluding with Agag that the bitterness of death is past that the worst is not still behind which God in his infinite mercy give us wisdom to prevent by our timely Reformation in the forementioned instances for Christ Jesus his sake To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be rendred by us and by all the world all Honour Glory and Praise Amen FINIS * See Prov. 26.24 25 26. See Prov. 25.18 * Deut. 4.15 c. See Dr. More ' s Mystery of iniquity Book 2. Chap. 5. Most plainly to be learned from the Council of Constance Sess. 19. P. Perionius The excellent Mr. Joseph Mede declares it as his Opinion that the Papal Persecution doth equalize if not exceed the destruction of men made upon the Church by the Ten famous Persecutions under the Pagan Emperors And this he wrote before the horrible slaughters in Piedmont and Ireland * That is upon supposition that the Evidence be fully known to them * We think it high time to shew our dislike of those against whom we have been ever enough offended though we could not in this manner declare it who under pretence of Affection to Vs and Our Service assume to themselves the liberty of Reviling Threatning and Reproaching others and as much as in them lies endeavour to stifle and divert their good inclinations to Our Service and so to prevent that Reconciliation and Vnion of Hearts and Affections which can only with Gods Blessing make Vs rejoyce in each other and keep our Enemies from rejoycing King Charles II. in His Proclamation against Vicious and Debauched people T is evident I meant nothing by this passage but that we ought to imitate the Fathers behaviour in the Parable towards his Prodigal Son There are likewise another sort of men of whom we have heard much and are sufficiently ashamed who spend their time in Taverns Tipling-houses and Debauches giving no other Evidence of their Affection to us but in Drinking our Health and inveiging against all others who are not of their own dissolute temper and who in truth have more discredited our cause by the licence of their manners and lives than they could ever advance it by their Affection or Courage c. In the same Proclamation * This Paragraph is a little enlarged Ricaut
the Non-necessity of the Laity's partaking of the Cup in the Lords Supper and their being Rob'd accordingly of their share therein expresly contrary to our Saviours institution and the Practice of the first Ages of the Church and of all other Churches in the world What say you to their well known Doctrine Of the Non-necessity of Repentance before the imminent point of death And to this other that goes beyond that viz. that meer Attrition or sorrow for sin for fear of hell if accompanied with the Sacrament of Penance is sufficient to a sinners justification and acceptance with God This the Council of Trent doth plainly take for granted in the fourth Chapter of their fourteenth Session What say you to the Doctrine of Opus operatum which makes the meer work done in all acts of Devotion sufficient to the Divine Acceptance particularly the bare saying of Prayers without either minding what they say or understanding it And agreeably hereunto the Romish Church enjoyns the saying of them in a Language unknown to the generality of her children notwithstanding the perfectly contrary Doctrine delivered by S. Paul in the 14 th Chap. of the first to the Corinthians What say you to the Doctrine of the Insufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for mens Salvation and her denying them to be a complete Rule of Faith and Practice in things necessary without her Traditions Wherein she gives the Lye to the same great Apostle who tells his son Timothy that the Scriptures are able to make wise to Salvation and that by them the man of God may be perfected and throughly furnished to every good work What say you to her Doctrine of the Gospels obscurity even in things of absolute necessity to be believed and practised devised on purpose to perswade the people to an implicit belief in her self and to receive without examining whatsoever doctrines she shall please to call Articles of Faith This is a wicked Doctrine in it self also as well as upon the account of the Design of it It being most unworthy of God to require all under pain of damnation rightly to understand those Points which are obscurely revealed What say you to her Doctrine of the dangerousness of the vulgars reading the Holy Scriptures and her Practice answerable thereunto of denying them the Bible in their own language What say you to her Doctrine that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks What say you to this Doctrine that the most horrid villanies are then lawful when necessary to the promoting of the interest of the Catholick cause I do not say that this is decreed in any Council or that it is in express terms taught by any of them But however if it be lawful to judge of mens opinions by their constant practices we may without a Calumny call this also a Doctrine of the Church of Rome Particularly the world hath for a long time been well acquainted with her most horrible Cruelties upon the account of Religion To mind you of a few famous instances in the persecution of the Albigenses and Waldenses were miserably murthered no fewer than a thousand thousand In the Massacre of France in the space of three months an hundred thousand In the Low-Countries in a few years were cut off by the hand of the common hangman thirty and six thousand Protestants And by the holy Inquisition as Vergerius witnesseth who was well acquainted therewith were destroyed in less than thirty years space one hundred and fifty thousand with all manner of the most exquisite cruelties I need not mind you what a vast number were Burnt at the stake in our own Country in the Reign of Queen Mary Nor what additions have been made since to Romes Butcheries in Piedmont and Ireland And what a horrible slaughter had there been in England by the Gun powder Treason if it had not been prevented by a Wonderful Providence And also what work the Romanists would have been at here again before this time if God in his infinite mercy had not defeated the Councels of those bloudy Achitophels all who do not wilfully shut their eyes and are not Papists at least in Masquerade should one would think acknowledge themselves satisfyed after so great evidence So that we need no further proof that the Woman hath Rome Christian for her principal Seat upon whose head S. Iohn tells us was a name written Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth and whom he saw drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus But we have farther proof that the now mentioned wicked doctrine may truly be charged upon the Church of Rome For her abominable Practices do not only justifie this charge but several of the Doctrines of her darling sons those pretious youths the Iesuits and which as they tell you are much elder than their order viz. That of the lawfulness of Equivocations and Mental Reservations even before Courts of Iudicature at least if they consist of Hereticks of the putting which vile principle into practice we have had of late diverse marvelous and most astonishing instances That of the Popes power of Dispensing with the most Solemn Oaths and of Absolving Subjects from their Allegiance to Heretical Princes That of the Lawfulness nay Meritoriousness of taking Arms against them of Stabbing and Poisoning them And we of this Kingdom too well know that the Romish Church make no bones of practising upon these Principles I might still farther proceed in instancing in her most corrupt and wicked Principles but you have had enough in all Conscience And but that now especially we are obliged to take all opportunities for the exposing of the vileness of the Romish Religion I would e'en be as soon engag'd in stirring Jakes's and raking dunghills as in such work as this God be thanked for that mighty Spirit that hath been stirred up throughout the Nation against Popery Oh that it more generally proceeded from our sense of the hatefulness thereof and the extreme dishonour it brings to Christianity and its infinite injuriousness to the Souls of men as well as from the concern we have for our Temporal interest which is but a mean and pitiful consideration in comparison of those other And the better the Principles of Popery and the Practices of the Papists are understood the greater and more lasting must their zeal against them needs be who have any hearty kindness either for Christianity or for Natural Religion either for Christianity or for good Morality and common honesty or even mere good nature I will not so far imitate the horrible uncharitableness of the Romish Church as to say that 't is impossible to find any sincere Christians in her Communion and much less that no honest or good natur'd people are among them But this we are very certain may safely be said that whosoever is throughly instructed in the Popish Principles and acts accordingly is so much a