Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n
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A51462
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A letter to a person of honour in London concerning the papists from an old cavalier in Yorkshire.
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H. M.
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1663
(1663)
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Wing M29; ESTC R36490
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8,444
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16
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against him Read then the death even of those few desperate men and you 'l find they heartily repented at least most of them Read all their History the foulest that ever that Party was concern'd in and I am confident though you 'l continue your just indignation against those who were Traytors yet your anger will be allay'd towards the rest that were Innocent at least all Revenge will be satisfied when you have considered how long and how universally that one crime of a few desperate men has been punisht Mistake me not I would not have so great a Crime forgotten but I think it belongs to Christian charity that the greatest should at last be forgiven Can there be imagined a more detestable Treason then that against our late gracious Sovereign in which though Justice take care to conserve the memory yet mercy already has pardoned the Offenders And here I cannot but remember some passages among us that keep alive our animosities and certainly have more of humour in them then ingenuity We call the Papists Ignorant and yet fear their Subtilty We cry out of the Foggy Mysts and Egyptian darkness of Popery and at the same time rail against their Priests and Jesuits as Crafty Foxes that destroy the Vineyard of the Gospel If they write openly we say they grow insolent If privately they seek to surprise us If they say nothing at all we suspect they are plotting to do the more Even since the late Proclamation for banishing Priests a Friend of mine told me he heard this captious Dilemma made use of If many go away then there were many here and it was time to look to them If few then the more are left behind and still we must have a care of them If they complain they are afflicted we say they are Male-contents if they take all with patience we say they are well enough now if they can be contented Nay so crosly we interpret one another that to my amazement I have heard some zealous Discoursers affirm the Papists were guilty of all our Divisions in Religion because they were striving still to shew that our Principles lead to Divsion Which if it be true is no Crime in them at all If false let us labour to disprove it they who discover the consequences of inconvenient Maximes are not too blame but they who set up those Maximes Therefore methinks our better play in this point is first to prove the Papists in an errour and then the union and unchangeablenesse they so much boast of will be the greatest Objection against them since such union makes an errour apt to deceive and such fixedness makes it impossible to be mended Whereas our variety has this advantage that some may be in the right while others are in the wrong and if to day we mistake to morrow we may correct it Other accusations we too hastily impose on them which none but Fools and Bedlams would be guilty of As that whoever is in power and prevails and rules they still oppose him And therefore at first they were against the all-commanding-long-half-lower-House then against Oliver then against the Rump Now against the King Thus some among us still seek to make it be believed the Papists are alwayes against the governing Powers onely that the governing Powers may be alwayes against them Sure if all be true we say of them our English Papists are a strange race of people every kinde of Reformer suspects them to make Plots and Conspiracies with his particular Adversary against him In the beginning of the late times they were charged to conspire with the Protestants against the Presbyterians In the midst of these miseries they were accused to conspire with the Presbyterian against the Fanaticks Now in the end some are found to murmur up and down that they conspire with the Presbyterians and Fanaticks too against the Church of England All I can say to this case is either we mistake them or they are mad men and have no more wit then a weather-cock that where e're the wind is still turns his face directly against it Though in all these Instances I think they are extreamly misunderstood yet is there one wherein I am not satisfied my self and that is their acknowledging a Foreign Authority in prejudice of our Kings Supremacy And at first sight I easily discern the Controversie has for a long time been somwhat mistaken at least misexprest The Question I conceive is not whether the Supremacy in matters purely Spiritual be in the King or the Pope but whether in the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury or the Pope I shall onely loosen the knot a little and then 't will unty it self We know our graver and more learned Divines distinguish between the inward power of the Keyes and the outward jurisdiction by temporal penalties This they assign to the King in all Causes and over all Persons That they reserve to the Clergy as neither deriv'd from the Civil Magistrate nor dependant on Him And thus much the Papists unlesse I 'm misinform'd are ready to profess onely they fasten the toplink of the pure-Spiritual chain to the Chair of Rome and not to that of Canterbury Which of these waies is the more convenient I cannot judge but plainly see if one be inconsistent with Monarchy the other is And if a Subject may be in any consideration Supream without derogating from his Prince a Stranger may be so too Think on it well and instruct me if I erre But you will Reply if the Moderate on both sides so nearly agree in sense concerning the Kings Ecclesiastical Authority why do the Papists refuse the Oath of Supremacy and the Protestants admit it shall I tell you freely my thought I believe if the Protestants understood that Oath as it sounds they would never take it for it gives the King more then they mean and if the Papist could understand it to sound no more then the Protestants mean they would never refuse it How then shall this difference be reconciled Either let both sides be understood to mean as they speak and then neither of them will take it or to speak as they mean and then neither of them will refuse it The remedy if heartily desired is easie There needs no more but fairly to frame the Words according to the sense I mean all this while as far as concerns the Royal Supremacy in Ecclesiastical affairs not intermedling with the pure Spiritual part which I leave to the discussion of pure Spiritual Persons And indeed the Oath it self aims at no more then to assert these two Points that the Supream power in Spirituals belongs to the King and that none of That Power belongs to any Forreigner as is clear by the Words of the Oath nor to any other as may clearly be infer'd from the Form of Submission made 35. Eliz. 1. where the Submitter is requir'd to testifie in his Conscience that No other Person hath or ought to have any Power or Authority over his Majesty Which I understand in matters belonging to the Church for those were the Cases provided for by that Act. I had almost forgot a principal consideration The Papists 't is said solicited his Sacred Majesty to publish the late Declaration for tender Consciences and did none solicit but they Or must it be counted so unpardonable a Crime for Subjects to beg of their King the Performance of his Royal Word At least thus much we must confesse in excuse of the Papists they needed most their Princes Indulgence because the Lawes were severest against them They deserv'd it best because of all that needed it they were most faithful to him They moved in the fittest time after the Common Vniformity was Enacted and before the Services they had done were forgotten Yet for all this the general mercy was far more sparingly exprest to them then to any of the rest Sullen Presbyterian that rather will starve himself then endure a Papist to have a morsel of bread 'T is true some withdrew themselves from the publick Service upon that Declaration But was there one Papist among them Why must the Papist and none but he be whipt when the Puritan and none but he playes Truant for the Papist went to another School before and therefore though he still be absent from ours yet cannot he properly be said to play Truant Nor can the endeavour of procuring this Declaration be suspected as our fashion is for a Popish-plot and that all the Papists conspired in it together when I have Reasons to be extreamly confident few knew of it till 't was cry'd in the streets I know 't is easie to be jealous but every one knows 't is uncharitable too unlesse we have a cause we that is some peevish spirits among us say that all along the late times their Priests and Jesuites were in the enemies army and under the disguises of Taylors and Weavers preach'd them into rebellion But if never any one of these were discover'd on what ground do we say they were there and if they were discover'd by what favour were they protected against the Law sure nothing can be aid why they were not found guilty but that they could not be found But 't is time to conclude for my part let others do as they please I 'le strive to love my own Religion without hating another mans much lesse will I hate another man for his Religion I conceive him in an errour and he thinks so of me I have some marks of being in the right and he believes he has as many as I I reade the Bible and so does he And after all our differences continue What shall we do but live peaceably together till it please God to clear the truth among us Onely this advantage I cannot deny to the Papists that in temporal respects they are incomparably more tolerable then either Presbyterian or Fanatick In spiritual though we charge them all with Errours yet those of the Papists consists with the Being of our Church the other destroy it Excuse this long Letter and believe me ever SIR Your most humble and obliged Servant H. M. York 13 May 1663. FINIS