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truth_n	hear_v	speak_v	word_n	7,138	5	4.4441	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90061	The craft and cruelty of the churches adversaries, discovered in a sermon preached at St. Margarets in Westminster, before the Honourable House of Commons assembled in Parliament. Novemb. 5, 1642. By Mathew Newcomen, minister of the Gospell at Dedham in Essex. Published by order of the House of Commons.	Newcomen, Matthew, 1610?-1669.; England and Wales. Parliament.	1643 (1643)	Wing N907; Thomason E128_1; ESTC R18223	52,376	80

your severall Remonstrances have made them known yet give me leave to informe the rest of our brethren a little of them Our adversaries in Ireland have bin plotting their present rebellion these seaventeen yeares as some have deposed See the Fri●sh Remonstrance These seaventeen yeares they have bin making fireworks and laying traines for the kindling of that combustion which now devoures that miserable Kingdome And what have our adversaries bin doing here the meane while Think you nothing Whence then proceeded those long intermissions of Parliaments that we began to feare our Parliaments would prove like those Roman solemnities Ludi seculares Alexan. Gen. Dier li. 6. c. 18 Quos nemo mortalium vidit unquam nec visurus est Which no man lived to see twice being held but once in a hundred yeares Whence came the immature dissolutions of so many Parliaments but from the plots of these our adversaries He that knowes not where the strength of England lies may learn of Englands enemies For as the Philistins when they knew that Samsons strength lay in his haire plotted to cut off that and then they easily bound him put out his eyes and made him grinde in their mill So our adversaries knowing our strength to lye in our Parliaments have bin ever plotting to cut off them One Parliament they attempted to blow up with powder but many a Parliament they have blown up without powder that so our Parliaments being intermitted interrupted they might at once lay bandes upon us and put out our eyes that we should not see our owne bondage lay us in our Lawes and liberties and we should neither know nor see Esth 7.4 And if only in our Lawes and liberties If as Esther said We had only bin sold for bondmen and bondwomen the mischeif had bin more tollerable But had not our adversaries plotred to slay us as the two witnesses were slaine in the Revelation To slay us by taking the word of truth and life from us Did they not say we will come upon them and they shall neither know nor see tell we are in the middest of them and cause that work to cease I know there are many in the Nation and may be some here that cannot yet be perswaded there was ever any design for the alteration of Religion amongst us Such I beseech in the spirit of meeknesse to lend me a patient and unprejudiced eare I stand not hear to declaime against any persons or rankes of men but to speak the words of truth and sobernesse I know that I stand this day not only before a great Court but before a greater God to whom I must give account for what I now speak Contzen Politic. li. 2. cap. 18. Layes a plott for the altering of Religion in a Protestant Kingdome which is Laid downe in certaine rules Adam Contzen A Jesuite of Mentz in his second booke of Politickes the Eighteenth Chapter hath drawne a plot for the cheating of a people of the true Religion by sleight of hand and the serving in of Popery againe upon them by art of legerdemaine that they shall neither know nor see The method of this which certainely is one of Satans Methods he layes downe in certaine rules Be pleased but to observe how exactly the late times have moved according to those Rules and then judge of their designes His first rule His first rule is this To proceed as Musicians doe in tuning their instruments Who straine their strings with agentle hand and set them up by little and little Or as Physitians doe in curing diseases who abate noxious humors by degrees and pauses This rule was observed both for the destructive and adstructive way For the destruction of the true Religion and the advancing of the false they had learned this wisdome to proceed by degrees and pauses And first for the destruction of the true Religion To suspend all the Orthodoxe preathers in the land at once would have made too great a noise therefore proceed by degrees And first suspend all Lecturers which will not constantly practise the ceremonies Then after a little pause Clap downe all Lecturers as an order of Vagrants not to be toller ated in the Church When that is done Forbid all Pastors and Incumbents preaching in their owne parish Churches upon weeke dayes Next inhibit preaching upon the Lords Day in the After noone under pretence of advancing Catechising by that meanes and yet with in a little while after forbidding all Catecheticall exposition tying men to the bare words of the Primmer Catechisine As soone after they forbad all praying but in the words of the Canon Now what can any ingenuous man thinke the designe of all this was But to rob us of preaching and praying and thereby of the Gospell and true Religion wholly in conclusion Only to doe it by degrees for feare of noise and tumult to doe it so as we should neither know nor see And for the adstructive way The rebuilding of Rome among us did they not proceed by the me steppes First Urging the constant and full practise of the old Ceremonies beyond the intention either of Law of or Canon Then bringing in an Idolatrous fardell of new pop shisuperstitions without warrant either of Law or Canon but their owne paper injunctions forcing their observance upon Ministers and people but by pauses and degrees First the Table must be railed in soone after set in an Altar posture Then thirdly All must be compelled to come and kneele before it or not receave the Sacrament Then it must becried up as the Sanctum Sanctorum the place of Gods chiefe residence upon earth the Seate and Throne of God Almighty And there upon Fifthly All mens faces in prayer must be turned towards that Men may yea must say some adore and bow before it c. What could the intent of all this be but after the Altar to bring in the sacrifice and with their wooden worship the breaden God Only to doe it by degrees that wee should not know nor see So in doctrine First bring in Arminian doctrines then the popish will easily follow Let the Serpent but winde in his head he will soone worke in his whole body Let Arminianisine but obtaine countenance and licence in the kingdome Our Pulpits Schooles Presses will soone bee filled with popish doctrins witnesse the publishing of so many points of popery one after another specially those two That the Pope is not Antichrist And that the Church of Rome is a true visible Church Alta sic surgunt maenia Romoa Thus according to the rule of their Master Iesuite they seeke to re establish Rome by degrees They said they shall not know nor see His second Rule His second Rule is this To presse the examples and practises of some as a good means to draw on the rest And was not this familiar with them to dazle the eyes of the meaner and lesse judicious people of the kingdome with the practices

faith patience courage When there was deliberation at Rome about the demolishing of Carthage * Sinenda est Carthago ut ejus metu disciplina à majoribus tradita jam Laba cens rest ituatur Appian de bellis puntcis let it stand saith Scipio least the people of Rome should want an occasion or object whereon to exercise their valour God could soone annihilate his Churches enemies but let them live saith God let them doe their worst they shall but be for the exercise of my peoples wisdome faith zeale constancy courage and whole panoplie of grace 3. For the further illustration of his owne Glory And yet God hath a further end in permitting this then his peoples exercise and tryall and that is The illustration of his owne glory by the crafty and cruel attempts of the Churches enemies that the glory of his wisdome and power in the preservation and prosperity of his Church might be the more illustrious Archimedes had never been so famous if the City where he dwelt had not been so long so violently besieged and a long time preserved onely by his meanes If the Church of God the city of the habitation of his holinesse should not often be surrounded with enemies besieged with difficulties and oppositions the wisdome and power of God in preserving and prospering his Church would never be so glorious therefore the Lord suffers the Adversaries of his Church to designe and indeavour by craft or cruelty or both to hinder any worke that tends to the Churches good gives them leave to plot and conspire against his Church and lets them say They shal not know nor see til wee are in the midst of them c. The Doctrine applyed 1 By way of Commemoration And now if ever Text were verbum diei as the vulgar Latine reades it or verbum super rotas as some others Surely this Truth this Text is such Every word of this Text is a Wheele of that triumphant Chariot Pro. 25 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mercer in which our Church and State this day glories over a designe of our Adversaries against us fraught with all the subtilty and cruelty that hell it selfe was able to infuse into it This day thirty seven yeares was this Scripture fulfilled in England This day thirty seven yeares the King then sitting upon the Throne had summoned the Peeres and Commons of this Kingdome to an Assembly of Parliament The intent of that meeting as was hoped by Gods people and feared by their enemies was to surround Ierusalem and the Temple with walls and bulwarkes to secure the Church the true Religion and worship of God with needfull healthfull Lawes this was the worke intended Wherefore should a Parliament meet but for that worke and our Adversaries said they shall not know neither see till we are in the midst of them and slay them and cause the worke to cease And our Adversaris Our Adversaries Who are they Consider and then judge Who are they that when time was filled their loathsome Prisons with the bodies of our fore-Fathers Made our land drunk with the bloud of Martyrs In the space of lesse then 4. yeares sacrificed the lives * Balthaz Hol. in Chron. Osiand Cen. 16 Histor Eccles Anno 1555. of 800. Innocents unto their Idols And ever since God hath put a stop to those bloudy outrages have travailed with nothing but Englands destruction now these Fourescore yeares Who are they that have made so many desparate stabbes at the breasts of our Prineces so many deadly blowes at the heart of the State given life and vigour to so many insurrections and rebellions in the bowells of the Kingdome Are they not the Papists It is easie then to point out these Adversaries The Papists they are our Adversaries so they have beene so they are so they will be as long as Christ is ours his Gospell ours the Reformed Religion ours Sooner shall a man finde honey and balme in the nests of Aspes and the Dennes of Dragons then wee true friendship and peace with Papists Said Sooner shall East and West meete and kisse the Arke and Dagon Hierusalem and Babylon Christ and Belial cease to be Adverse then they cease to be our Adversaries These were these are our Adversaries And our Adverssaries said These our Adversaries had had many a saying to us they had said in eighty eight a Psal 83 4. Come and let us cut them off from being a Nation that the name of England may be no more in remembrance They had said as Moab b 2 Kin. 3 2● Up Rome to the spoyle presuming the victory was theirs before the fight And when that Saying was disappointed yet they said there was a day a comming which should pay for all that was the day of Queen Elizabeths death concerning which their Balams prophesied c Parsons ans to the libell of Eng Iust p. 176 181. That by the uncertainty of the next heire the Kingdome was in a despeat case in the greatest misery that ever it was since or before the Conquest and farre worse then any Countrye in Christendome d Cujus sepulchrum velut totius Regni voraginem naufrrgium tanquam sub oculis contemplemini Ingentes moles tempestatum conturbationum cruentorum imbrium conglomeratas nubes vestris impendere cervicibus despicietis Vndiquaque Anglia in praedam expetitur expectatur Weston de triplici hominis officio in perorat ad Academ That Clouds of blood hung over England which waited but her dissolution for their dissolving that upon her death England would be a common prey and her tombe would be Englands grave This our Adversaries said then and from these sayings issued all that prodigious variety of murderous complotments against the sacred person of that ever honoured Queen The miracle of her Sex the glory of her Age the astonishment of the World But the silver line of her pretious life being hid in the hollow of Gods hand from all their desperate assassinates she full of yeares and more full of honour went to the grave in peace and God who frustrates the tokens of the Lyars Isa 44.25 and makes Diviners mad contrary to the hopes and confidences of our Adversaries brought in a peacefull King and established his Throne in peace What Say our Adversaries now are they not so ashamed and confounded in their former disappointments as they can open their mouths no more No they are saying still the malice of our Adversaries is as uncapable of disheartning as Balaam was in his attempts of cursing Israel Let God appeare never so often against them let the Angell of God stand with a drawn Sword in his hand they will on yet again our Adversaries said c. What Pharaoh said to his Servants that our Adversaries said one to another Exod. 1. Come let us deale wisely our former projects against this people have bin too shallow and open our

greater then in other places of the Kingdom and are like to continue still For though I hope it is not in the purposes of God to destroy England nor to destroy London yet I have thought sometimes The purpose and intent of God hath beene to humble and attenuate London and England For Englands long continued peace had abundantly increased Englands wealth and the abundant creased of Englands wealth had proportionably increased Englands pride The age before us knew not that excesse of bravery in clothes and utensils that we were growne unto And the generation growing up was like to exceed us in both God saw us labour so dangerously of a plethory as his wisdome and love judged it needfull to abate and exhaust our fulnesse at least so much as is super fluous and not matter of subsistence but matter of pride unto us which if we can willingly and chearefully resigne up to the disposall of God we may possibly thereby obtaine and secure our lives Lawes Religion the things that are or should be dearest to us But if we hugge our wealth when God would have us let it goe Take heed we lose not that and all the rest Me thinkes I reade it in the footsteppes of God towards England God hath said I will abate the wealth and pride of England Me thinkes the succession of these three warres within these few yeares which comes not without the speciall providence of that God who ruleth in the kingdomes of men the expences of all which must lye upon England speaks it That the purpose of God is to abate the pride and wealth of England And me thinkes we should say as Mephibosheth did 2 Sam. 19.30 Yea let him take all for as much as my Lord the King is returned againe in peace to his owne house might we but see our Soveraigne Lord the King brought in peace againe to his owne house and to His Houses of Parliament Might we but see the King of Kings upon his holy hill of Zion Christ in his beauty on his Throne The Church reformed truth and peace established let him take all I perswade my selfe every honest heart that is loyall to God to the King to the publicke weale would willingly speake it and seale it did not our adversaries by their crafty insinuations indeavour to divide as much between the Parliament and people as they have done betweene the King and Parliament That would faine perswade the people of this Nation with the Ape in the emblem to cut in under the arme of the tree whereon they sit and plunge themselves into a gulph and sea of misery To this purpose as they have tolde his Majestie so now they tell the people That the Parliament will alter Religion A charge like that of Rabshakeh against Hezekiah and as true When he would perswade the people God would not helpe them because Hezekiah had altered Religion Isaias 36.7 If thou say to me we trust in the Lord our God is it not he whose Altars high places Hezekiah hath taken away sayd to Iudah and Ierusalem you shall worship before this altar Truth is This is all the alteration of Religion the Parliament hath made They have taken away the high places and Altars that they have done intended to proceed to command all worship to be according to the rule of Gods word To say to England you shall worship according to this rule And this is he great crime of altering Religion My brethren be not deceived ●●●e●●tio Perse●riva o●ruptiva As in naturall so in civill and morall things there is a double alteration There is a perfective alteration And there is a corruptive alteration To alter Religion so as to corrupt Religion was the plot and work of the Popish Prelats and their faction To alter their alterations to antiquate their innovations to reduce Religion to its pure originall perfection which cannot be done without alteration of some thing introduced that was the purpose and work of the Parliament and for this it is our adversaries crie against them They will alter Religion I but then the Parliament will alter the government of the Kingdome Yes Just like as they altered Religion As in Religion such alterations as tend Ad perfectionem are not to be condemned So likewise in Polity and civill government Plato tells us That in all Common-wealths upon just grounds there ought to be some changes And that Statesmen therein must beehave themselves like ski●f●●l Musicians Qui artem Musices non mutant sed Musices modum But they do things without his Majesties consent I that is our greif and our adversaries triumph That our adversaries have so farre prevailed upon the heart of our soveraign as to perswade him to with draw first his presence then his assent from the great Councell of his Kingdome And thereby force them Either to do things without the consent of our soveraign Or else do nothing but sit still and expect their owne the Kingdomes ruine And in such a case is it so high acrime to determine things necessary for the safety of King and Kingdome without consent of his Majestie when it cannot be obtained I have read that the Persian Monarches were wont to call the Peers and Presidents of their Provinces to Councell but giving them no freedome nor liberty of Councell For every one of them had 〈◊〉 plate or tile of gold to stand upon in the Councell house and if he gave councell that the King thought well of Kecker Polit. the plate of gold was given him for a reward but if he delivered any thing contrary to the Kings minde Valer. Maxim l. 9. c. 5. Flagris caedebatur And one writes that Xerxes in his expedition against Greece called his Princes together and spake to them to this purpose Least saith he I should seeme to follow only my owne Councell I have assembled you and now do you remember that it becomes you rather to obey then advise Our adversaries would faine have it so with the Peers and Parliament of England and have a long time bin labouring to perswade his Majestie it ought so to be and would make the like impression upon the people now But you my brethren beware of their insinuations and know That they that devide between his Majestie and Parliament or between Parliament and people are the greatest enemies of King people and Parliament This is the first time that ever loyalty to the King was set in opposition to fidelity to the Parliament The first time that ever it was thought possible to draw the English Nation to desert their Parliament under the notion of adhering to their King Oh let not this age beare the date of such infamy Did ever Parliament do more for the Lawes and liberties of the Nation with more danger and detriment to themselves And will you when they have need of you leave them well here is our comfort God hath not left God will not leave his cause 1. Kings 8.57.58.59.60 his work his people 1. Kings 8. The Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers let him not leave us nor forsake us that he may encline our hearts unto him to walke in all his wayes and to keep his commandements and his Statutes and his Iudgements He even he maintaine the cause of his servants and of his people Israël at all times as the Matter shall require that all the people of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is none else FINIS