Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A43806
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The rites of the Christian church further defended in answer to the appeal of Dr. Wake : with a letter to Mr. Hill ... on the account of the Municipium ecclesiasticum, as also an answer / by Sam. Hill ...
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Hill, Samuel, 1648-1716.; N. N.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing H2011; ESTC R5805
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16,492
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62
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THE RITES OF THE Christian Church further defended In Answer to the Appeal of Dr. WAKE With a Letter to Mr. Hill Rector of Kilmington on the account of THE Municipium Ecclesiasticum As also an Answer By Sam. Hill Rector of Kilmington John 18.23 If I have spoken evil bear witness of the evil but if well why smitest thou me Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1698. A LETTER Written to Mr. HILL on the account of the Municipium Ecclesiasticum With the Answer c. SIR TAking it for granted that you are the Author of Municipium Eeclesiasticum and that you will think your self obliged to remove those Charges laid upon you in your Adversary's Appeal I think fit on so ticklish a Point to offer you some Considerations necessary in my Opinion to allay the Prejudices that seem to lye against you For first of all There are some that conceive you to be the Author of the Letter to a Convocation man and therein to have thrown a needless Bone of Contention in a time of great Jealousies under the late Plot and War with very suspicious Reflections upon the Greatest in the Government and considering your daring Attempt not long before upon a formidable Adversary your Enemies stick not to represent you as a Man of Incendiary Humours a Prejudice very easie to take among Strangers and Persons disaffected especially in a soft Age dissolved into Courtship and Caresses On which account I should with submission think it not expedient to avert those Misconstructions by setting forth Truth under its fair and equal Reasons for the generous Vndertaking and this with your Name set to take off the Reproach of a Libel fixed on it The part that appertains to the intrinsick Merits and Substance of the Cause appears in the Appeal it self which you know best how to treat and therefore I do not pretend to advertise you thereupon but wishing you all Success Reward and Happiness for your many Pious Hazardous and Labours for this poor Church I subscribe New Atlant Feb. 24. 1697 Worthy Sir Yours Entirely N. N. The Answer SIR SInce you were not pleased to let me know you nor where to return Thanks for so endearing an Office yet since you have given such Useful Intimations you have fixed me in a Method how to appear on this Appeal about which I was before very anxious and undetermined for now I think it the most proper way for me to give you an Epistolary account of my sense in this matter which being sent by the Press will find you in your Secrecy and satisfie at once both you and the Impartial World against such Surmises which such an Adventure must needs draw upon it Know you then that we are so far from being the first starter of this controversie that after all possible inquisitiveness we have not been able so much as to guess at him nor are we at all concern'd in those whether real or pretended reflections at which his adversaries are all so fired And to be free with you and the world if the passages taxed did in truth design reproach his own conscience ought to smite him will one time or other do so severely if for nothing else yet for the Hypocrisie and false Colours but since his language carries in it an apparent zeal and veneration for all authorities now in being and particularly hopes for vengeance on those that reflect upon His Majesty to create a Jealousie with his people we think his Opponents have no warrant from any rules of Justice and Charity to pronounce him a reviler so absolutely as they have done and if God who searcheth the hearts finds him to be as intentionally innocent as his words are then these Men have brought that guilt of maledicence on themselves with which they now load him So that herein they seem not to have considered our Saviours precepts against Censoriousness as much as how to gratifie their own malice or ambitions But as to what really concerns us we are not very solicitous what partial men say of us because no protestations in the world can inhibit their malice and therefore in what we are accountable to God alone to him alone will we reserve our account being contented to leave with the world these arguments of our integrity that though we could have laid trains of assentation in order to advancement by avoiding all disgusting writings and by bending our capacities to serve the present Genius in Officious Treatises and fulsom Dedications and had prospects fair enough before us to have led us into such temptation yet have we never slained our concisence or our pen by any such little and illiberal Artifices but have always chosen rather to please God in the Cause of the Catholick Faith and Church against all unjust displeasures of Men than to be sacrilegiously guilty in corrupting or betraying those Divine Principles and Constitutions and if it be possible that any person especially of the sacred Robe can be offended at us for serving the Cause of Christianity at the Expence of our powers and at the loss of all our worldly Interests we can only recommend them to Gods mercy and in the mean time condole the state of the Church in that there are some in her that are more concerned for her promotions than her fundamentals But though Integrity is under no such great Obligations to stand in awe of the delicate or censorious world in order to any internal comfort and satisfaction yet that its designs may be more serviceable to the holy Ends proposed we shall not grudge to shew what just reasons there were to oppose the Counsels and Principles of this Doctor tending so openly and violently to the ruine of the Ecclesiastical Powers and Constitutions It is too intimately known to all considering and religious Persons how much the rampant Advances of Heresie and new Schemes of Christian Faith created in the Church a desire of a free Convocation to correct these Extravagancies by the methods used in such cases through all Ages And we wish we could not say that the Interest of the Criminals hath found a party against the general appetite and benefit of the Church inspired with a Spite from the dead against the lower house of Convocation not to be abated till they can hope to introduce thereinto a number and majority ready and sequacious in the execution of their purposes In which unnatural and irreligious Project they club in with all the Atheists Infidels and Sectaries of the Nation a splendid Instance wherof we have in this Doctor who has for Complices in this Adventure * Author of the Essay concerning the power of the Magistrate and Rites of Mankind in matters of Religion in his Postscript concerning the Letter to a Convocation Man one profligate Anti-christian Infidel and foul-mouth reviler of the whole Church of God through all Ages and egregiously of the Reformed Church of England in this last Age in comparison with which
not only his Darlings the Sectaries his serviceable tools to Irreligion and Scepticism but even the Papists against whom however he inveighs sufficiently nay the very Heathens are very Lambs and Saints and another Anti-Ecclesiastical and Anti-Academical Lawyer of the same bran †Author of the Letter to a Member of Parliament c. and this discernibly enough tho' not so raging but more tect and sly in his Methods of Mischief Of this fraternity all along have been those worthy Monitors of the Convocation at their last Session and those raging Calumniators of it that malign it ever since because not waxen enough for some Mens Impressions Which sawcy Treatments if offered to the Guardians of our Civil Liberties would have brought the Adventurers under the Zeal and Inquisition of the State while the grand depository of Christianity is securely vilified and used as our Lord and Master which is however the greatest honour in the sight of God though otherwise intended by malicious and vexatious Men. And yet while open Enemies do us this dishonour we can the better bear it but to be betrayed trayed up to the scorn of all our Enemies by those that eat the same bread and drink of the same cup is that which calls back the saddest Example of horrour in this kind to our Remembrance and Resentments All which being considered will easily justifie the Municipium Ecclesiasticum from the suspicion of a causeless and incendiary Undertaking Nor can we think that even the Civil State will conceive any offence at it since they that undermine the Authority of the Church in Spirituals overturn the Superstructure of the Magistrates Interest in the Civil Conduct of Religion For no Man can think that a Secular Authority has a more Interiour Right in Ecclesiasticals than the Church its self and therefore the illustrious Author of the Essay above-mentioned has with the same hand destroyed all Civil as well as Ecclesiastical power in matters religious which when the State shall be at leisure to recollect it will no doubt be jealous for its own Authority in the most important Concern and when it shall appear that this is overturned by destroying the Foundations of the Church what will be thought of those Church-men that have supplied these Caitiffs with Match and Powder And if the Church shall not disclaim such Proditors of her own how can the State think that we will be true and trusty to the Civil Rights and Liberties of the Nation that are so negligent and prodigal of our own and hereby at once become the publick scorn and scandal But if we are not to sollicit the cares or sentiments of the State as to their own Matters yet we think we may be permitted to resent and correct the Insolencies of Clergy-men making all possible sail to preferment by a spiteful and contemptuous Carriage toward the supreamest powers in the Church who can traduce the use wisdom and gravity of all Ecclesiastical Synods in general (1.) Author of Christ Prine p. 306. by Reflections that will destroy as much the Authority of Parliaments (2.) p 317. not sparing any as far as appears of the great Constantines Synods (3.) p 307. for the sake of those that were corrupted purely on the Court Interest which he fraudulently conceals who in the times of Popery scouts the Convocations even when opposing the avarice of the Pope (4.) p. 195 197 198. as well as for asserting their immunities against the King upon the Authority and Injunctions of the Pope (5.) p. 205 350 to 356. and 298 to 303. while yet his own historical Deduction ascribes the first Introduction of the Papal Authority to the Acts and Contrivances of Kings against the Domestick Power of the Church on which however he passes no censure (6.) p. 178 179 181 182 186 187 194 195 197 199 203. above the bare relation of fact and an intimation of Weakness who beside all this is more Satyrical upon the Reputation of Convocations even now in a state of Reformation and vast Learning and Experience (7.) p. 42 43 82 112 270 271 272 297 316 317 320 325 329 330 337 343. Appeal p. 121. as if they were the most peevish untractable spiteful imprudent and dangerous Societies to Kings and States that can be imagined in no wise to be trusted but under Guards and Irons who can when no provocation is given not only vilify his Adversary and even at the same time pretend a tenderness in this point (8.) Dedi p 3 4. Pref. p. vij Book p. 5. p. 261 262 296 304 305 339 345 346 347. Pref. to Appeal p. xxiij xxiv compared with the whole malicious Book but even take occasion where none offered it self to render the present Clergy or a great part of them odious as Men quarrelsome and barbarous (9) Author of Princ. Pref. p. vij viij Book p. 332 333 334. hypocritically perjured for the sake of their Preferment and yet Seditious against the Government (10) p. 349 355. Dedic to Appeal p. 2. to which they have Sworn and some associated as if he were not contented with the fall of those unhappy Clergy-men who have sunk under false Notions and Principles of Allegiance but had an appetite to exasperate the Publick unto more discriminating and more distracting Tests in order to a more Numerous and Tragical Evacuation of Churches for certainly that Spite and Wickedness of surmise against such a supposed mischievous Party yet remaining in the Bosom and Communion of the Church can import no less that so we might have an History of the Persecution of the Church of England in all things conformable or in no wise inseriour to that of Scotland Hence is it that this Inhumanity of Design as well as Corruption of Principles has exposed it self to the just scorn and detestation of the Clergy of this Kingdom and there is no Charge in the Municipium equal to the Malignity of the Project And having thus given you as I think sufficient Reasons why such a malicious and calumnious Book should be refuted we think little need be said for the Municipium's being nameless to purge it from the imputation of Libellous For if a Book be good that concealment cannot impeach it if it be naught the prefixing a Name does not so much excuse the Libel as attest and aggravate the Impudence the Opinion of which the Municipium was willing to decline with those who would be sure or likely to reproach the Author with that Aspersion and if to avoid this Rock he has dashed upon the other he must bear his Fortune as well as he can and commit his Cause to him that judgeth righteously From these Provocations come we now to the Appeal it self to consider both the Exteriour Pretence as well as the Interiour Weight and Substance of it that so the Readers may be able by easie and obvious Views to discern its Pertinency and its Justice First Then