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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	charity_n	faith_n	justification_n	4,801	5	9.5998	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45632	Some reflections upon a treatise call'd Pietas Romana & Parisiensis, lately printed at Oxford to which are added, I, A vindication of Protestant charity, in answer to some passages in Mr. E.M.'s Remarks on a late conference, II, A defence of the Oxford reply to two discourses there printed, A.D., 1687.	Harrington, James, 1664-1693.	1688 (1688)	Wing H834; ESTC R6024	66,202	96

those who are influenc'd by prejudices but others too of an easy nature and an obedient reason may esteem of this as an inoffensive Treatise and such as should rather excite our Emulation than require our Censure For there are some virtues so transcendent that as the necessity of them never enters into dispute so ought neither the exercise nor the due praise of them wherever Exercis'd to be prejudic'd by our Contests And if Charity and Devotion be the chief of those in which all Parties center and agree and which all equally think commendable what ill-nature would it be in the Levite to Envy and lessen the praise of the Charitable tho' dissenting Samaritan There can therefore be no sinister intention in the Commendation of Liberality and a Panegyric on Devotion or if there should have been any seeming Grounds for suspicion the Good well-meaning Author hath remov'd all occasion of jealousy and openly protested that the Scene of such publick Pieties being either Rome or Paris cannot in his judgment give any just cause of offence I confess therefore I have not only this Author's word for it that he is of this opinion but his reasons that inclin'd him to it and having consider'd both the weight of his Arguments and made all just allowances for the measure of the Capacity they were to work on I must yet beg his Pardon If I cannot believe him And tho' I am far from apprehending any danger from the force of his reasons yet to prevent the influence they may have on some mens credulity I shall be as much concern'd to detect the artifice of the reflexions as the falsity of the slander It is evident then that ever since the first Reformers began to protest against the doctrine of Merits and chose rather to rely on an imputative than an inherent justice those who little understood the Energy of an active faith represented them as open Libertines and the professed enemies of those works which they could not think meritorious This Calumny that had scarce foundation enough to make it seem plausible was yet universally receiv'd and promiscuously us'd against the Lutherans in Germany the Calvinists in France and the Disciples of Cranmer in England In all the Challenges from Rheims and Doway they have still wav'd the defence of their faith and appeal'd to the test of works and with the obsolete arts of Porphyry and Julian fell from opposing the Christians Faith to traducing their Morals This Author now having succeeded no better in his Arguments than his Predecessors betakes himself to this last asylum He repeates the old slanders but manag'd with more closeness and dexterity and proves him-self Master of as much malice but somewhat less ingenuity For when we have fair and open accusations we know the extent of the Charge but in doubtful Sarcasms secret Ironies and expressive Hints it is hard to fathom the depth of the Calumny The doubt of things Evident is worse than the denial and the uncertainty of the Scepticism is not design'd as a favor to us but a subterfuge to him-self In the beginning then like a Man of art he will graciously allow that some of our old Fore-fathers K. Alfred perhaps or St. Cuthbert have left us rich in the variety of the Publick Monuments of their Munificence Yet This now is such a Concession as only makes more room for the slander and the Civility of the Preface imbitters the Satyr it makes the ignorant Reader think him in earnest and gives autority to the scandal it is one of those gifts that are snares and is the kiss that consecrates the treachery For least the greatness of this Charity which in general words is allow'd should gain any credit with the Reader it is presently limited with the Yet that succeeds it the grant is invalidated by the number of the Exceptions and men are left to make an estimate of what we have from what we want He therefore proposes to our imitation Some Inventions of forreign Charity which seem either not to be at all or not so frequent here at home and which happily may be thought worthy to be transplanted hither Such are these The Provision for expos'd Infants The Relief of Indigent Tradesmen and decay'd Gentlemen The Maintenance of poor Orphans The Erection of Free-Schools The releasing of men imprison'd for small debts The Visitation of the condemn d Criminals The Giving advice to the Poor Gratis The providing dowries for young Maids and Work-houses for idle Beggars These now are the New Devices and Patterns of forreign Charity and the want of these only and some few more which he doth and many more which he could name is the small defect which we are guilty of who otherwise are rich in the famous works of our Forefathers here at home Here then ought we to breath a little and admire the happy wit of these Frenchmen and Italians who could so luckily hit on these New Devices these ingenious exercises of Charity which we that are so far remov'd from the Sun never Yet have nor indeed ever could have dream't of And now if a man were in love with digressions he had never better opportunity to expatiate on the advantages which travail hath brought to this Nation To see how this Gentleman refines upon the dull heavy Patterns of domestic Charity which tho' they were as like to these as the Poor would wish yet they wanted the belle air of the French and Italian bounty Our Charity is promoted by monthly meetings Quarterly Sessions yearly Feasts but where are our Confraternities Compagnia's and Sodalities The London Piety hath been lately so great that their Churches and Hospitals gain'd by their Conflagration Yet still our Poor Hospitals are neither Sees nor Towns nor is our Bishop's Palace as big as a City Oxford would buy out all the Roman Colleges But yet must as justly yield to Sapienza as Bethlehem to Pazzorella Now unless there be some new Charity in imposing well-sounding names on the Acts of it and the munificence of the Donor is to be try'd by the Pomp of the Title it will not be easy to discern the preeminence of forreign liberality and therefore as hard to pardon the denial of the most apparent works of English and most of them of Protestant Charity which no man can be ignorant of that hath breath'd English air that hath travail'd ten miles in this Island and knows a Free-School or an Alms-house when he sees it Since therefore the Reflexions are so severe let us see what Ground there is for them Let us see what preeminence the Romanists can justly claim in the Exercise of all Good Works and of that chiefly which they more Particularly insist on Charity First then it is the known Doctrine of the Trent Council that Charity is not only declaratory of our Faith but Effective of our Justification That

He who gives to the Poor literally lends to the Lord and is the Creditor of Heaven as indeed he is by virtue of God's free promise but not for the merit of his works Now the Notions of the Romanists in this point of Merit are so gross and extravagant that a Man who is not inclin'd to Paradoxes may reasonably doubt whether any one act of true Charity ever was or indeed can be founded on those Principles For Charity exerts it-self in Free-gifts and nothing is properly given where the pretended Donor can demand an Equivalent To give is to part with Right and every Benefactor must necessarily put himself if not out of the hope of receiving yet out of the Capacity of requiring retribution Whoever distributes his Mammon and leaves him-self the Power of Exacting a greater return is no more liberal than he who puts his money to interest and buys a title to an Estate in Reversion If therefore we would make an exact Parallel between the Roman and Protestant Charity we ought not only to consider the largeness of the Expence but the Generosity of the design since Good Deeds are to be measur'd by the Ends and Intents for which they are done and there may be great Contributions where there is no liberality He that conveys alms to the Poor with an unwarrantable design is an instrument of Providence but is no more charitable for being so than the Raven that fed Elijah Our bounty therefore should it be found more frugal is yet more heroical generous and disinteress'd and neither can be the result of our Covetousness nor the occasion of our Pride But upon an exact scrutiny we shall find that these different Speculations have not the expected influence on our Practice and that the Giver not only distributes more freely but more largely than the Purchaser For that we may use some Method in reflecting on this undigested heap of Calumnies all Charity either respects the Christian or the Man either assists our Brother in his Spiritual wants or supplies his temporal necessity First then as to Spiritual Charity which is the less Popular yet certainly the Greater Virtue If the instructing Novices in the mysteries of the Christian faith be the first of all the Spiritual works of Charity he that reads our Rubric considers our Canons views our Practice will have little reason to accuse our care of young Christians or because it sounds bigger of Neophytes and Catechumeni We use Manuals therefore as much as the Romanists and esteem them as necessary but not so sufficient we teach them these only as Preparatory instructions and such as illustrate the Scripture not supersede it And till the Sacred Oracles shall speak intelligibly till those Prohibited Books shall be licenc'd their Adversaries will say and that without either affected malice or Manichean Impudence that they nuzle up their disciples in ignorance tho' their Sermons should be as frequent as their Holydays and their Manuals as numerous as the Ave's in them And yet the Preaching at Paris too is not so assiduous but that it may be easily eclips'd when Geneva is so near and London at no greater distance We might wonder therefore that the Frequency of their Sermons should be recommended to our imitation were it not done by the same pen that praises the Eloquence of their Preachers who unless eloquence consists in bold Enthusiasms affected confidence and antick postures may generally be rank'd in the same Class of Orators with this Author Sure I am that in one more lasting method of Instruction which is the printing of Nervous Sermons we have out-done not only all Popish but to speak impartially all reform'd Countries and that more have been publish'd at London within these twenty Years than Paris can boast of within a Century And this cannot be probably thought to proceed from the French Modesty whith hath seldome been famous but from a due sense of the meaneness of those Prones and Postills when devested of the Garn●ture of Action The Oratorians are not the only men that visit the sick nor are there wanting The Fathers of the Agonizants in England only our Visitation which is no less comfortable to the dying is yet less dangerous to the living it frightens not men into enriching an order by impoverishing their heir nor into expiating the sins of their life by a worse at their death In short They have little Reason to boast of Spiritual Charity if they administer the Sacrament frequently to the People but administer not all if the Sermons which they give are Extraordinary and yet not equal to the Scripture they withold if their Prayers are often repeated and yet no more understood by their Hearers than St. Bede by his Auditory of Stones This then is their Spiritual Charity The next thing which this Author chiefly insists on is the magnificence of their Churches and Hospitals some of which we willingly own to be sumptuous and shall assign the reason of their Foundation When Rome had ingross'd the riches of most Nations in Europe and had made the other Provinces as tributary to their Bishop as they had been before to their Emperors some methods were thought on which might still improve this profitable devotion and maintain the revenues of the Chamber And since it was evident that their treasure was much advanc'd by the offerings of Pilgrims while there and more by their favourable relations when they return'd humane prudence advis'd them to consider what motives would most invite such advantagious guests to the City and most oblige them in it Stately and Pompous Churches adorn'd with some reputed Relicks and feign'd images were the most likely things to attract them Good Hospitals and kind receptives the most probable motives to induce them to a good opinion of the Place and a Panegyric on those that entertain'd them Thus the vast Churches and Rich Shrines of Rome were built thus the large Inns and magnificent Hospitals were endow'd as things that would certainly turn to accompt and repay the Undertaker with interest And as every Nation contributed to this Common Bank of the Treasures of Europe so was it but reasonable that the Bank should maintain a College for the receipt of her liberal Votaries But how can it be justly expected that we should make equal provisions for Knights Errant in England unless they brought equal gains to our Coffers England was a Mine inexhaustible and paid as much to Rome as to her King and if Rome would return the civility we should not be backward to give a Roman College here in exchange for the English one there The Churches therefore and the Hospitals of Rome were built with design and are instances not of the Popes liberality but their Policy They are indeed Viscata dona not the gifts of a generous Bishop but the baits of a Miser The Masters of Ecclesiastical Policy undertook a new Trade

SOME REFLEXIONS Upon a TREATISE call'd PIETAS ROMANA PARISIENSIS Lately Printed at OXFORD TO WHICH ARE ADDED I. A Vindication of PROTESTANT CHARITY In Answer to some Passages in M r. E. M' s. Remarks on a late Conference II. A Defence of the OXFORD REPLY to two Discourses there Printed A. D. 1687. Shall vain words have an end or what imboldneth Thee that Thou answerest Job XVI 3. OXFORD Printed at the THEATER Anno Domini 1688. Imprimatur GILB IRONSIDE Vice-Can Oxon. August 13 1688. To The READER IF the drudgery of writing were a Penance impos'd upon this Author he may now at last hope for a release having sacrific'd so much credit with so great disadvantage to his Cause that the Interest he design'd to serve is concern'd to sue for his Quietus For though the scarcity of tolerable writers for the Papists did in some measure cover the meaneness of his other performances it will hardly recommend these last Essays which have sunk below the level of Catholic Pamphlets and what is yet harder to imagine degenerated even from his own His first efforts were indeed weak but they aim'd at our Capitol and tho' neither the strength nor conduct yet the boldness of the Adversary made them considerable but now the Man that once attacqu'd our establishment both in Church and State is dwindled to an insidious hinter disdains not to Transcribe two little hotheaded Enthusiasts and to shew the profoundness of his humility challenges nothing to himself but that which vitiates the work the mixture of Reflexions His former pieces had somthing of grandeur in the Title and lookt like one of his Italian Hospitals which tho' worse endow'd than an English Alms-house have a stately Portico and a magnificent Frontispiece but this Faithful Relation this little book is all of a peice and has a Portal exactly proportionable to the Fabric Heretofore his Stile too tho' obscure and intricate discover'd rather an ill management than want of sense now 't is generally somewhat below plainness and when it is imbellisht it is with such childish flowers as the meanest Schoolboy would be whipt for Is this then at last the great result of his leisure after so long deliberation Is this that for which the four parts of Church-Government must still be postpon'd and give way to the naked Epitome of a Spittle-Sermon I confess I cannot imagine why he submitted to such an inglorious undertaking unless he had some hope this book might prove too mean to be regarded and by its unworthiness escape the hard fate of confutation which has fallen so heavy on his other works And this had certainly secur'd him but that he was lately pleas'd to administer fresh Provocation after a long silence had almost persuaded the world he began to understand his strength But if He persevere in publishing Wee shall always be ready to do him reason and hope to convince him too if it be possible that he spoyls everything he undertakes I hope the Reader will expect no Apology for the slowness of these Reflexions which should have appear'd much earlier had we meant to meddle with this subject But late as they are I believe they will come to most men before they have seen his Treatise and by consequence before an answer to it is expected For as it is this Author 's peculiar happiness that his works are never known till they are answer'd so this in particular has been so little inquired after that it rather seem'd to be expos'd than publish'd Some Reflexions c. THERE have been many ingenuous Criminals who have had little sense of Religion but some of Honor who when they forgot to be Christians remembred they were English-men and tho' they were no good observers of the Laws of their Country yet preserv'd a sense of those inbred obligations to it which of all propensities to virtue are the last shaken off But so much generosity as this amounts to is not frequent among our Roman Proselytes who learn not only to defy the force of civil constitutions but cancel the common instincts of Nature and tho' they can by no statutes be induc'd to abjure the Kingdom are easily persuaded to renounce their allegiance to it Campian and Sanders first began Parsons and Garnet carryed on this holy war against their common Mother which hath since been successively continu'd by all members and candidates of that Fraternity men that have lost all claim to the title of English-men unless we allow an English-man to be what they define him a Feudatory Vassal of Rome And yet tho' many of this Author's Predecessors have thus industriously aspers'd their Country they have been still so prudent as to spread their Calumnyes at a distance Antwerp and Rheims heard sad relations of our Sacrilege Pasquin and Marforio talkt largely of our impiety But it was a fresh piece of assurance to libel the English charity at Oxford where the very walls confront the accusation and our Author 's own annual revenues proclame it to be false and ingrateful For it is not the Protestant Devotion only against which these Reflexions are design'd but the English liberality and we are oblig'd to answer not only as Sons of the Church but as Natives of the Soil and what is more as the heirs of a despis'd Munificence To charge England with a want of Charity and commend the most common exercises of it as new discoveries in this Island is the Complement of the Preface and seems to look like a kind admonition but afterwards to prefer the Roman charity as more exalted and the French piety as more refin'd than ours and to carry on the jest in a mortify'd stile with a shew of gravity and seriousness of so flat a Lampoon is the most virulent that ever was written These groundless slanders of our Fathers and Benefactors coming from one who is maintain'd by them would naturally force us to some harshness of Expression and that notorious eminence of our Ancestors works which has made it no difficult task to refute these calumnies hath made it the more hard to refute them with candor and to mollify an answer It was therefore once thought requisite that all occasion of contest might be avoided barely to set the Monuments of English Charity in their true light and to give them no other advantage than what they must necessarily receive by being oppos'd to the French and Italian But this would be a work of leisure unless we would use no more exactness than this Author does in his and though it is but due to the merits of our Ancestors is far more than this Pamphlet can deserve At present therefore it shall be sufficient to make some short Reflexions on this Treatise and to justify the necessity of making them and that First by Exposing the malice of the design and 2dly by Proving the falsity of the insinuations in it First then I am not insensible that some men not only

and afterwards the Popish Parliament had depriv'd them or to give them an equivalent in Legal Provisions The former method was more suitable to the opinion of our Divines who upon the supposal I believe of some inherent sanctity always press'd a restitution in specie the latter was embrac'd by our Statesmen as being the less specious yet more safe For had Ed. 6th redeem'd some of those Monasteries and converted them into Hospitalls or Bishops Sees we may plainly discern from the fortune of Westminister Abby what a Revolution they must have expected under Qu. Mary Fabricks if kept intire might have reverted but the Rates of the poor will not probably be imployed to the maintenance of Regulars I shall repeat nothing of what I formerly said concerning those excellent Laws but may add that even the Penal Statutes which now seem so dreadful to some men are so many instances of our Charity to the poor and only force the obnoxious to a compulsive liberality This hath been our national munificence And if M. M. will be pleas'd to peruse the Autorities which I here present him with he may easily be satisfied that the Charity of Private Persons was not inferior to that of their Representatives How many Diocesses and Shires are there now in England which have not so much as one Alms-house and Hospital Yet to want both was the unhappiness of more than one Shire or Diocess before the general Dissolution The redemption of Captives the enlargement of Prisoners the dowry of poor Maids the erection of Free-schools the restitution of Tithes and other more ordinary works of Charity were not only the constant attendants but the necessary results of the Reformation But since I have formerly insisted upon these I shall purposely avoid all repetition and shall only take leave to answer a common that a plausible objection For since there were few Laws made for the relief of the Poor before the Reformation there is no probability that they were not then maintain'd tho without Laws It hath been hastily concluded and too easily granted that whatever small Stipends the Monks allow'd to the Poor their Hospitality was extraordinary and that upon the failure of that the pressures of the Poor first requir'd a Parliamentary remedy I will not deny but some indigent Persons might receive a sensible loss at the overthrow of Abbies and tho' that might be one yet I think what I am going to assign was the chief Cause of that sudden alteration Anciently when every inferior person that could probably be reduc'd to extremity depended on some Baron either as a Servant or Villain every such Lord lay under an indispensable obligation especially in those days of Hospitality to support him in his weakness who had imploy'd his strength in his service But when H. 7th's Law diminish'd this dreadful power of the Nobility by setting up almost an equal ballance in the Commonalty the Tenures were alter'd and dependencies almost every where ceas'd so that no man having a particular obligation to succour him that had liv'd independent the Charge necessarily fell upon the Community Poverty therefore enter'd in upon the change of Tenures not of Religion nor was the result of our Ecclesiastical but our Civil liberty 2. That the Churches of this Island suffer'd much by the Reformation signifies no more to any one that understands this Author's sincerity than that they were increas'd by it For if we speak in reference to the Fabricks few men that have either seen or read of our Ancient Churches will deny the 〈◊〉 to our Modern Architecture The Building of so many Churches immediately after the Reformation the repair of almost all of them under K. James the late and sodain erection of so many in London and the daily progress of that stately Temple of St. Paul are no very convincing arguments of the Sacrilege of Protestants And since amidst our present unhappy Contests our Charity to the building of that magnificent Edifice doth not cease I cannot but compare it to the couragious Purchase of that Roman who bought the Ground in the Suburbs while Hannibal laid siege to the City Pompous Edifices were always the works of a secure and flourishing Church and that the Primitve ages of Christianity erected no more was not their crime but their Adversaries not the result of their covetousness but insecurity And therefore tho' it be some mens interest to foment jealousies and then to accuse them there is no rational man but will see that Men that still carry on so noble works do firmly rely on his Majesties promise and give Him more thon a Paper assurance of their confidence in it But since there is reason to suppose that the notion of Church extends farther than to the stones of it we may conclude he that Charges the Reformation with the decay of Churches conceives part of their revenues to have been diminish'd by it Happy had the Church of England been if some that discours'd much of Sacrilege had been careful to avoid it and not alienated those setled revenues of which God even in Heathen Countries is esteem'd the Proprietary But Selden Linwood and Dugdale will assure us that not only Exemptions and Modes but even Appropriations of Tithes and that to Orders originally 〈◊〉 were of an elder date than the Reformation Most of the Monasteries and Hospitals were built upon the ruines of the Seculars and it was an easy but unacceptable Charity that only presented God with Achan's wedge Ananias's land and Belshazzars Vessels Appropriations then Exemptive Bulls Conveyances of all the Tithes or of part of them were the sad inventions of another Communion Our business it hath been as S r H. Spelman and M r. Fuller can inform him to redeem their crimes and repair the sad ruines of this Church Many Protestants have voluntarily surrender'd up those Tithes which the Monks first invaded more have increas'd the stipend of those poor Vicars who before were forc'd to live on the errors of their flock with design perhaps that they mightly under the greater obligation of deluding them That our Clergy then is in a better condition than those Seculars were is well known both to us and them and perhaps this Consideration hath chiefly engag'd Mr. M. to cast a favourable eye on Dr. Tenison's Parsonage Might not this Parsonage of S t. Martins keep 30 Regulars who always were maintain'd for very little at least with the Convenience of an house to dwell in The frugality of the Regulars is notorious but the Charity of this supposition puts me in mind of as frugal a manager of Oyntment which might have been sold for 300 pence and given to the Poor Lastly The Schools of this Nation on which this Author was so prudent as not to insist were then rare and unendow'd nor could it be justly expected that Religion should much promote Learning which it self was advanc'd by Ignorance He need