Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
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A47994
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A letter from a gentleman in the city to a clergy-man in the country
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Gentleman in the city.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing L1387; ESTC R9507
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23,794
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42
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and Causes whatever and creates an Oath to be tendered her Subjects for confirmation of that Power In the fifth of her Reign grown warmer in that Supremacy she imposes the Oath upon all her Ministers and Officers of the Government even to Lawyers Atturneys c. and particularly to be taken by ever Member of Parliament And the second Refusal of taking it after a first tender of it three Months before is made High Treason In the 13th of Her Reign All persons taking upon them by Colour of any Bull Writing or Authority whatever to absolve or reconcile any persons or grant or promise to any person or persons within Her Majesties Dominions any such Absolution or Reconciliation by any Speech Preaching Teaching Writing or any other open deed and if any person or persons shall willingly take or receive such Absolution or Reconciliation shall suffer pains of Death And also lose and forefeit all their Lands Tenements Goods and Chattels as in Cases of High Treason A very soure sort of Grape to set their Childrens Teeth an Edge with In the 23d of Elizabeth This Act is explain'd and confirmed and in fine the Person reconciling or reconciled to the Church of Rome Priest or Lay-man are Equally declared Traytors and so onwards till the very taking of Orders from Rome is High Treason and doomed to suffer as such Ay God knows a very just sentence if the Indictment be but true But I desire to know by what Legerdemain is this Reconciliation made High Treason Is either the Life or Dignity of the King or the Government struck at by my being a Member of This or That Communion by my believing This or That the Way to Heaven Can Faith in God be Treason against Man For that 's the Result of the point Can a Christians best Endeavour to save his own or his Brothers Soul be a Machination to destroy his Prince or his Country or can my praying or not praying to a Saint my adoring or not adoring the Eucharist render me a true or not true Leige-man If Errours in Faith can amount to High Treason and the Government is in Conscience obliged to treat 'em as such Lord have mercy upon us how came the Jews to live with that Impunity in the Common-wealth that instead of misbelieving in points of Doctrine believe not so much as in the Gospel or Christ himself No no the Sophistry of the matter lyes not there 't is not the Doctrine of a Romanist as to Godwards makes him a Traytor but his belief of the Popes being Head of the Church in Derogation to the Ecclesiastick Supremacy inherent to and Lodg'd in the Crown and so religiously asserted and maintained by the Protestant Laws of the Kingdom Hinc Illae Lacrymae There lyes the Apostacy the hideous yawning Gulph that swallows all Faith Duty Honour Loyalty and consequently calls for Axes Halters Gibbets and what not Is this the Treason then 't is well we have fixt it there tho' upon true Inspection the Impeachment will be found full as feeble here as before For this is but meer matter of Faith still all this while nor carries in it the least shadow of a Breach of the Subjects Duty to the Soveraign For Instance when this Law was made suppose a poor Roman Catholick of those Days by an Invincible power of perswasion rooted and grounded in him by an Article of Faith how rightfully is not the matter received from Age to Age and Generation to Generation in favour of the Pope cou'd not possibly believe her then She Majesty by her Accession to the Crown to be instantly the Spiritual Head of the Church in all matters and Causes whatever that otherwise before was utterly incapable even of so much as a Subdeaconship in a Country Parish and if St. Paul may be believed not so much as qualified for speaking in a Religious Assembly yet nevertheless this Roman Catholick lived under her Government with all the Allegiance and Fealty in all Respects of Obedience and believed himself in conscience so obliged to do as much as any other of her more believing Protestant Subjects would it not be a little severe to adjudge him a Traytor And that the Romish Opinion that the Spiritual Supremacy lyes not in the Temporal Prince is meer matter of Faith is demonstrable from the very Soveraign Power it self when so many successive Kings never believed they had that Supremacy themselves For Prerogative is of its nature so jealous that tho' never so considerable a Jewel in a Crown had they had Faith to have challenged it theirs they would have had wit enough to have worne it too What if our Protestant Kings and their Parliments for them believe that Supremacy wholy lodged in the Crown must their Roman Catholick Subjects be Traytors because they cannot be of their Belief If the Princes Belief must be the standart of the peoples Loyalty by the same Equity the Catholick Kings might have made it High-Treason in their Reign to assert that Supremacy in the Crown Then as the Protestant Kings do to deny it there now and consequently the Protestants then if such there had been might by Equal Justice have been Traytors too If Crown'd Heads must necessarily be believed the Spiritual Heads of the Churches under their Obedience I wonder what strange stretch of Faith those Thousands of Christians must have that are born and bred Subjects to the Mahometan Grand Signior But that the Members of the Church of Rome may not look altogether so black for this unhappy Part of their Belief and that their asserting of that Spiritual Supremacy in their Pope does not any ways threaten either the Crown or the publick peace That wise and prudent Monarch King James the First shall be their Compurgator For as many Laws as that Prince made for the Defence of the Establisht Church of England and as great Industry as he used for the extirpation of the Romish Religion he was nevertheless pleased to allow the Pope tho' not Vniversal Head of the Church yet Patriarch of the West in which precinct of consequence must England be included And if so zealous a Protestant King thought it no Diminution to his own or his Churches Dignity to be of that Opinion and to grant the Pope that Prerogative what mortal High Treason against the Crown of England do the Members of the Popes own Church commit in throwing him in the East too a part of the World not much relating to us into the Bargain and so making him Vniversal Patriarch Jacob. Contr. Perron But some People will tell you 'T is almost an Impossibility to fancy any such things as Principles of Loyalty in a Romish Subject to a Protestant King. I shall not endeavour to confute this uncharitable Censure by the Vniversal Heroick Examples of that Parties Loyalty in the Battels of Charles the First so truly may I call it Vniversal that upon Petitions made to Cromwell for his Clemency to the Roman Catholicks he
was observed to challenge them to prove so much as one Man of that Religion that had ever fought for him or served him But to wave that Plea How are we sure that the Romanists are guilty of Traytorous Principles Do's any man of them own any such Principles No sure they have more Wit than to talk Treason and be Hang'd for it If they are so hardy as to do that we have other Laws to noose 'em without the help of Penal Statutes Do they then commit any open Act of Treason Let 'em do that if they dare If we once catch them 'em at that Game the Government has 'em fast enough by the Heels and the Necks too Nor is that the Treason that these Statutes pretend to arraign Who ever heard of any Overt act of Treason indicted by the 13th or 23d of Elizabeth Then if neither Speaking nor Acting of Treason be the Capital Guilt these Statutes are levell'd at then Thinking of Treason must be the Crime A Roman Catholick then belike is such an offender that by the very Affections of his Soul cannot be Loyal to the Crown and to prove all this mortal Accusation infallibly true the Protestant Wisdom has by Divine Inspiration form'd a Law to arraign and condemn the very Thoughts of the Heart of which God only can be Judge In fine if the Government can make matter of Faith nay even thoughts Themselves High Treason when their Hand was in they might e'ne as Lawfully have made it High Treaon to eat too For if the firm Belief in God and the zealous Worship of him by the Best Light of a Christian Conscience be either the Bread of Life or at least the means to get it as we are so taught the same Legality that can condemn the one may exclude the other too To this they 'll say 'T is true indeed a Lay Romanist is a more excusable and that part of the Statute that affects him is a little hard however 't is very strong and nothing but High Justice against the Romish Priest for here are visible Overt-acts of Treason As taking of Orders from Rome in themselves little less than Damnable and Diabolical and undoubtedly Antichristian as received from the Papal See the very seat of Antichrist and then returning home again expresly against the Commands of the Law All which outragious Transgressions are but reasonably declared High Treason and justly exposed to the severest of punishments under the Legality of that Denomination To this Thundering Charge as big as it sounds I shall only make this short Reply If the Church of England has and always does admit a Convert Romish Priest into the Protestant Clergy without any Reordination to capacitate him for that Admission as we need look no further than to the constant practice of the Church without so much as one example to the contrary from the very beginning of the Reformation how unjustly are taking Orders from Rome charged with High-Treason If the Orders from Rome be in themselves Holy and Sacred how are they Damnable or Anti-christian And how the taking of them High-Treason If not Holy nor Sacred as if High Treason in the very receiving of them they cannot be does the Church of England entertain Pastors into her Ministerial Function unconsecrated for the Divine Service of God God forbid No the very Practice and Concession of the Church in this Case does so confront the palpable Injustice of this Statute as nothing can be plainer And how Black how Capital or Trayterous soever the Popular Calumny or the Protestant Law-makers had occasion to make these Romish Orders under all their loads of Guilt they stood upright enough not to want the Crutch of an Act of Parliament as some others have done as much more Sacred as they are for their Support and Confirmation And if such are the Romish Orders and the free choice of our Belief in God and the Church we hope to be saved in be in our own Election for our own Souls are answerable for it by the same Liberty of choice why may not a man be either a Member or Pastor of the Flock he chooses as his Abilities to serve God in either station shall dictate to him And if no such Holy Orders be to be had and received at home why is it Death to seek for them abroad And why are men banisht and excluded from their Native Right in the Kingdom in which they are born for only endeavouring to secure themselves their no less Native Right in that of Heaven One observation in the Statute of the Fifth of her Reign I had almost forgotten not a little worthy Remark In this Statute where the Incapacity of taking the Oath of the Queens Spiritual Supremacy for a Refusal of an Oath in that Case is only a Conscientious Incapacity of taking it is made High-Treason in one Clause of it the Queen is pleased to tell us she is so sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of her Temporal Lords that this Act nor any thing contain'd in it shall not extend to her Barons nor the Oath to be imposed upon them c. What Contradictions and Cobweb Laws are here A Commoner belike for his Incapacity of taking that Oath is guilty of Hâ—gh-Treason But a Baron so incapacitated is a very faithful and Loyal Gentleman as if they were not both of them equally Subjects to the Crown and equally Criminal in any Transgression against it 'T is true had the particular Favour and Indulgence of the Government resolved to exempt a Peer from the Penalty of this Law it had been something but to discharge him eo nomine from the Guilt too makes the whole Statute such an Arbitrary Declaration of Treason that both the Compilers of such Laws and the Defenders of them ought to blush at But as whole as the Barons kept their Scutcheons in this Statute they came in for a snack in the 13th of her Reign being in that Statute Indictable for Delinquency against it What Rubbish is here put together to build the great Fence of a Church with But our Church has at least this Apology that it does not pretend to Infallibility And who knows but the Jargon of these and the rest of her Penal Laws might be wilful Oversights on purpose to make out her Assertion to the World and prove her Fallibility true But to come to the full Result of all Here 's the Church of England so poorly prevaricating as to follow those very steps which with all her highest Noise and Exclamations she pretends are her greatest Detestation and Abhorrence And whilst the more frank and generous Romanist Enacts and Executes his Capital Laws against Heresy from his Church under the downright Name of Heresy our poorer spirited Protestant Law-makers are for punishing Heresy from their Church under Masque and Disguise obtruding their Penal Laws upon the World under the meanest of Hypocrisy and Imposture And to be plain with our later Protestant Law-makers the