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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A26400 An address to the Church of England: evidencing her obligations both of interest and conscience, to concurr with his gracious Majesty in the repeal of the penal laws and tests Allowed to be published this 1st of September, 1688. 1688 (1688) Wing A564B; ESTC R213112 25,350 25

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our Protestant Church utterly wants this Loop-hole upon true examination will be found wholly Inexcusable for in Executing of her Sanguinary Laws in Punishment of meer matter of Conscience she cuts off not like Rome the supposed Members of Perdition but even those Professors of Christianity which by her own Confession may be equally with her self the Sons of Grace and Co-heires of Salvation Nay I 'l venture to add one bold Word more because a true one The Church of England in her once Executing of her Sanguinary Laws is undoubtedly guilty of more Barbarity then the Ten Primitive Heathen Persecutions For in all cases of Suffering for Religion 't is an undeniable Maxim That He that makes the Martyr least thinks he makes him The Bloodiest Pagan Tyrants in all the studied Arts of Torments Blood and Christian Massacre did not believe that they Butchered the then only Professors of Truth and Heires of Heaven but on the contrary in Devotion to their own supposed true Deities they thought they only Executed Apostates Blasphemers and Infidels for such they accounted the Christians as profest Deserters of their Heathen Gods and Sacrifices But all this while our Church of England I am sorry to her shame it must be spoken out does the very Heathens themselves in Enacting and Executing those severest Penal Cruelties by which she Ruins Destroys or Cuts off those very Members of Christianity who if true Zealots in their Profession she owns are in the number of the Elect of God and if any true Zealots amongst them those certainly that have courage to suffer Gaols Sequestrations Banishments c. even to the constancy of dying for their Religion are not the least of them and consequently she cannot deny but in Executing those Laws she both makes the Martyr and knows she makes him too And if she 's so blameable in her Severity against the Romanists much more criminal must her Rigour against the Dissenters be whom she owns to differ from her self in little more then Ceremonies and Punctilios by her own Confession no ways essential to Salvation Nay the Ferment has sometimes boil'd so high that our Protestant Church has put her Zeal upon the stretch to find means to vent her Indignation when some of those very Laws against Recusancy have been extended against the Protestant Dissenters the greatest part of their Sufferings received from the Lash of those Laws I shall not pretend to dive so far as to ascertain whether that comprehension was Originally Designed by those Laws or otherwise an Artificial Superstructure to serve a State turn but either way the Severity of those Laws is not a little notorious where so trivial matters of Dissent in Religion as has been said before have been so cruelly treated But if our Protestant Church cannot possibly be reconciled to Liberty of Conscience and therefore these Laws were her Weapons against it her more generous way at least more agreeable to a Christian Profession had been first fairely to have overthrown it by dint of Argument before she made use of dint of Steel to do it by and for that purpose I wonder how that famous Bishop Taylor has past for so great a Doctor of the Church all this while and his Treatise upon that Subject called Liberty of Prophesying not yet answered or why at least was not the Author under no small Ecclesiastical Fulminations if no other way to answer it for so terrible a Blow against the Churches long main favourite Bulwark her Penal Laws 'T is true I confess all other means failing they lighted upon one incomperable Stratagem to confute it for 't is in Controversie as 't is in War where open Force cannot Conquer Policy must viz. finding their Impotence at all other Weapons after the late Kings Restoration they very wisely bought up the whole Impression to silence and sti●le it and the rest of his Works Reprinted without it 'T is true some People will object What are all these Laws to the Church when enacted only by the civil Power as an Expedient for its own Security and Defence and therefore Warrantable and Lawful nor in any respect are they chargeable upon the Ecclesiastics Alas this is such a feeble Objection that 't is scarce to be named without blushing as if the Clergy did not Act in Parliament by their Representatives nay the very Bishops ●itting there in Person assenting to and undoubtedly little less then Original Founders of those Laws but grant it as they say the m●er Establishment of the Civil Power the Clergy by owning the Justice and asserting the Necessity of such Laws for defence of their Church the Lay-power in this case is little more then the Cats-paw to rake out the Chesnut I confess indeed we have had many late Pulpit Discourses on this Subject and several softening Perswasions urged to throw off this Severity on the Temporal Administration But truly to our Churches great misfortune her numerous Excommunications the peculiar Bolts of her own spiritual Vengeance and the Goalings that have followed those Thunder-Peales are such notorious confronting Demonstrations against her that her clearing her Hands in this matter is a Second washing the Ethiop Besides wherein are the Civil Rulers and the Temporal Power of a Christian Government any ways more authorised to outgo the Gospel Moderation and Clemency for any Politick Consideration whatever then the more immediate Oracles of Truth our Pastors themselves And this the great Legislators of those Penal Statutes very well knew and therefore as I told you before they cunningly converted Recusancy into high Treason and Nonconformity into Sedition Disloyalty and what not to find something tho but Seemingly justifiable for the Fangs of their Laws to lay hold of and so boulstered up their Penal Statutes to make them able to walk upright But to evidence how highly our very Church Men have interested themselves in the Persecution of Non-conformity and shewn their implacable aversion even to the least shadow of Moderation what was their Prosecution of Dr Whit●y and Mr Bold on the latter of whose Head our Church Indignation and our Ecclesiastical Boanerges were not contented to pouer down their common Vials of Wrath by any single process against him to try the Point but they heaped no less then six several Suites at Law against him at one time as if the Glory of so Divine a Quarrel could put the stamp of Honour even upon common Barrerty it self Nay some of our very Clergy Men thought it no Blemish to their Gown to act the very part of Informers against him I 'l only put this one Question to all the Doctors of our Church With what Conscience can a Church that owns its self ●allible establish Laws to punish Dissenters in Religion when by her own Confession of ●alli●ility she neither has nor can have any certainty or assurance how strong soever she thinks or hopes her own Foundation but that she Punishes those that possibly may be more in the Right