Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A60057
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A Short answer to His Grace the D. of Buckingham's paper concerning religion, toleration, and liberty of conscience
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1685
(1685)
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Wing S3561; ESTC R10573
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14,126
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40
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Name of Jesus the Saviour of the World Again It is most certain that as there is but one God so there is but one Faith and one Truth Whereas there are many Errours and Doctrines of Devils in all dresses even that of Christian Religion Now these will all plead as strongly for Toleration and Liberty of Conscience as the true Religion and upon my Lords Hypothesis will have as undoubted a Right to it So that the whole World must be suffered to continue in damnable Errours and Heresies which they call Religion and no Person under Penalty of being guilty of one of the greatest Crimes and being Antichristian must punish them for their blasphemous Tenents or charitably indeavour by the fear and terrour of Humane Laws and Penalties as well as by Reasons and Arguments to oblige them to procure a better information of their Understanding and a clearer Notion of these necessary Truths wherein they have been by their folly and obstinacy mightily and it may be long mistaken for want of the Rod of Correction to cure them of that folly which is naturally bound up in the Hearts of the Children of Men. Now if it be true as it must if we believe every Word of God is true That no Man can be saved but by comming to the knowledge of the Truth by Supernatural Revelation and that they must all be damned who believe a lie that there is but one Name to give Salvation and one Truth to be believed Is it not a very fine way of leading Men to that glorious Truth and Light to tell them all who pretend to it have it how far remote from it soever and to render it almost morally impossible among so many authoriz'd Counterfeits to find the real Truth And is it not a charitable Doctrine to give Men Liberty of Conscience to go headlong to the Devil for God's sake without endeavouring to stop their Carreer when we see them mounted upon the blackest and most furious Steeds of damnable Errours and Heresies Will his Grace think it convenient to Tolerate the Conscience of a Calvinist who rides Whip and Spur upon the Pegasus of his Sanguinary Divinity and has the blasphemous impudence to compare Almighty Mercy which he says Gods Revealed Will seems to offer to all to be only like the Artifice of a little Vermin-catcher who baits his Trap with it only that by their refusal to which they are precondemned by his secret Will he may have something to say against them And were I at leisure to write or his Grace to read I could furnish him with a Bill of Items of this Nature in the Opinions of our several Dissenters longer then a Taylor of the greatest Faith ever trusted a promising Courtier for But let this pass only with this Remark that if it were for my life that I indeavoured either to make a witty Man an Atheist or to propagate Atheism in the World I would desire no other Favour or Foundation but a Toleration of all Opinions and Liberty of Conscience to effect it Nor is Toleration worse Divinity then Politicks I cannot say how it may stand with the Nature of a Commonwealth though because our Republicans are so fond of it one would think it calculated for their Meridian but certainly not onely Reason but dreadful Experience have assured us it is inconsistent with Monarchy Nothing can make a Monarchy Great and August but the Love and Union of the People and if his Grace will enquire of Lewis the Fourteenth he will inform him that is his Opinion and indeed nothing begets greater Divisions and Animosities in a Kingdom then Religious Feuds which weaken its Power at home and Reputation abroad but where these diversities in Opinion about Religion all meet as in a Center in the Point of the Lawfulness for the Sake or Name or Cause of Religion for Subjects to take up Arms to Dethrone and Assassinate privately or publickly to Murder their Prince and subvert the Government as the Principles of all Covenanters Associators and Excluders do I appeal to all Crowned Heads to all Persons who have any share in Government to all Ministers of State and Polititians nay even to his Grace himself whether such dangerous Principles and Persons Poisoned with them are not so far from deserving Toleration as to be most pernicious and intolerable in any Monarchy that desires or expects to be safe But what need we to argue from Reason when Fact is so evident Has not Indulgence Toleration and Liberty of Conscience murdered one King set up a thousand Usurpers made England suffer a thousand miseries and cost this Nation many thousand Lives many Millions of Treasure His Grace had a share and a large one in the effects of that Liberty of Conscience It was a Conscientious Felton that robbed him of a Noble Father and the World of a most Illustrious Life it was a Conscientious Rebel that slew his Brother it was Conscientious Rebels that Sequestred his Estate Imprisoned his Person and would have taken away his Life and if he has a mind to run the Gantlet again through all those Risques of Fortune I would recommend him to a Toleration and Liberty of Conscience to gratifie his desires for I dare assure him a Ducal Coronet is no more a Protection against Conscience when once it takes the Field then an Imperial Crown or a much hated though Innocent Mitre Were that late Rebellion onely the single dismal Extravagance of Conscience grown Frantick by Indulgence or wantonly Cruel by too much Liberty something might be alledged in mitigation of its Crimes But it is a Wild Creature in Dissenters whose Chain is no sooner loose but it flies at the Throat of its Keeper And no Man can doubt of this who reflects upon the Troubles and Dangers which have befallen our late Sovereign and His Illustrious Brother our most Gracious King which must date their Aera from the last Indulgence for no sooner had the Dissenters gained that Point but they threw at all and the good and loyal Subjects of the Church of England the best Supporters of the Crown being discouraged the Faction grew Rampant to the highest Degrees of Insolence imaginable and wanted but little of pushing on a more dreadful Revolution than that of Forty one For who were the Petitioners the Addressers the Life and Fortune Men the Associators the Exclusioners the Rye-house Conspirators but the great Friends to the Dissenters to Liberty of Conscience and Toleration And who were to assist these mighty Undertakers but the Dissenters the Band of Pensioners to this pretended Conscience And whoever Indulges those who plead Conscience opens a secret Sally-port to let in Traytors disguised under the Name of Tender Conscience betrays a Principal Gate of the Government to his Enemies and for one Conscience really Tender will find a thousand as hard as Iron and as sharp as Steel and as mortal too in a Dissenters Hand And I cannot but infinitely admire at that Passage
A SHORT ANSWER To His GRACE the D. of Buckingham ' s PAPER CONCERNING RELIGION TOLERATION AND Liberty of Conscience LONDON Printed for S. G. and are to be sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1685. To the READER THat I have written this Pamphlet is plain and the Reason of it as plain in Answer to one Printed with His Grace the Duke of Buckingham's Name wherein I think he hath not rightly informed himself or his Readers I have no Apology to make for the Printing of it but only that I think a Sore always wants a Plaister till it hath got one Of how dangerous Consequence to Religion and the Peace of the State such Arguments may prove I hope his Grace did not give himself leave to consider And should he take the pains to do it it is not to be expected he should draw both Bill and Answer and act for the Plaintiff and Defendant successively one after another How pernicious an Animal this Mountain and Wild Conscience hath been to England is too well known and how fatal Toleration would be I hope in a few words to make evident in the ensuing Papers And the Nation being in a fair way of Composure the stirring of this extravagant Ferment which hath run us into so many Fevers of State seems very unseasonable at this time and requires something to precipitate the Lees of Sedition and keeping them from rising again and turning the Wine of our Hopes into the Vinegar of Despair My Opinion in these points having ever been diametrically opposite to those of his Grace's Paper and having been long convinced that nothing could more effectually contribute to the Ruin of this Monarchy Church and State than Toleration and Liberty of Conscience I have prevailed upon my self to expose my thoughts to the publick View and Censure upon this Subject and Occasion as being thoroughly perswaded I am in the Right as to the main and not much solicitous for the fate of a five or six hours Paper which the Ingenuous will pardon if it be not exact and the Rigorous would condemn tho an Angel had writ it That I do not affix my Name to it is because I do not design to be known And tho I am not ashamed to have writ it or think it will do me any disreputation yet I am unwilling to seem arrogant in attempting to answer a Person of so Great a Character and so Celebrated a Name to whom I desire to be known under no other Name than that of His Grace's most Humble Servant And a most True Friend to the Interest of ENGLAND A SHORT ANSWER To His GRACE the D. of BVCKINGHAM's Paper Concerning Religion Toleration c. IT is a pretty odd Adventure to see a Person of His Grace's High Character and Parts enter the Lists and advance himself the Champion of some things so much out of Countenance and Reputation that even those who formerly owned them would take it unkindly not to be thought wholly to have forsaken and abandoned them And in truth Whiggism in both its dresses of Toleration and Persecution which made her so amiable to the Noble Peer and others in the days of Association is now with sorrow become so abominably superannuated that she looks like a Cast Mistriss scorned and contemned even by the Porters and Footmen and it can be nothing but pure compassion and pity sure that procures her such a Glorious Protector But is it not as odd an Adventure to see any person so bold as to think upon such great disadvantages of coping with so disproportionate a Combatant as a Peer of the highest Rate of England whereby he must render himself liable not only to all the force of Wit and Sense but if he does not well guard himself with all Decency and Discretion to the fatal and murdering blow of Scandalum Magnatum And in truth if I had not put on the Armour of Conscience I durst never have taken up his Grace's Gantlet But I esteem my self invulnerable under that Mail and dare confidently believe my Lord would not for an unwary slip prove himself an Antichristian by persecuting an innocent person purely for what he believes his Religion exacts from him especially considering that his Grace's Maxim is infallible which assures us That no man believes because he has a mind to do so but because his Judgment being convinced he cannot chuse but believe it whether he will or not Nor do I believe should I be criminal in point of Deference or Good Manners towards his Grace that he would by animadverting severely upon me undo what he hath so publickly owned as an Opinion of which he hath been long convinced and to confute the labour of his brain by any action diametrically opposite to his Hypothesis But for fear of the worst neither my Nature or Education inclining me to any thing disobliging much less rude I will take care of my self And tho I cannot in approaching so near his Grace be procul a Jove yet I will be sure to keep my self procul a fulmine And I should be very angry with my felf if I should say any thing which even his Grace may think beneath the Dignity of his High Character for which I profess a most profound Veneration and Respect And my Lord being the Agressor I know he will not be displeased since we differ mightily in Opinion about Religion if I endeavour to defend my Belief which I cannot help very warmly and with some Opinionatrê And should I chance to pretend to be Comical and Pleasant now and then a Contagion no man can almost escape that comes but near his Grace's Pen which even in this serious matter is very facetious I hope he will look upon it but as my being stung with the Tarantula of his Paper which may make me dance and caper even contrary to my Nature and Inclination by the secret sympathy that is in the unaccountable poison of being Witty I confess my Lord writes with that taking air and pleasantness that it is impossible not to be delighted with it But not to flatter his Grace 't is too much of that nimble Contexture and seems to want not only the temperamentum ad pondus but the pondus it self and to make it in any measure currant must have many Grains not only of Salt but of Allowance too And in truth I cannot wonder to see a Peer write of Religion en Cavalier but do as much wonder to see a Noble Cavalier writing of Religion as I should to see a Blew-Apron-Knight correcting Euclids Elements or a Countrey-Clown drawing up Maxims of Politicks or Navigation I cannot be induced to believe our Noble Author hath made Polemical Divinity or the abstruse Notions of the Schools any one Scene of his diversion and therefore his Reasonings are witty and pleasant but not at all concluding his Notions are very fine and many of them very natural and true but not too Logical His Grace seems only to have done