The loyalists : $b an historical novel, Vol. 1-3West, Jane
History
The loyalists : $b an historical novel, Vol. 1-3
West, Jane
Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
"A true branch of the Catholic church," replied the Doctor, "may be
shaken, but cannot fall, because it has the promise of resisting the
attacks of the powers of darkness to the end of the world. But you
mistake me, Sir, if you suppose that policy was the schoolmaster who
taught me my creed, or that I will desert that Church in adversity who
fed me with her bread, and graced me with her ministerial appointments.
The pastoral office she intrusted to me may be wrested from my grasp by
force; my body may be imprisoned, my goods confiscated; you may drag me
to the flames, like Ridley, or to the scaffold, like Laud, but you
cannot change truth into falsehood, or make that right, which, though
successful, is intrinsically wrong. Whether the doctrines of the Church
of England be branded as those of a declining sect, or set by the throne
as a light to guide our hereditary Princes, they must be tried by other
criterions than popularity, I mean, by reason, Scripture, and
apostolical usage. I trust she will ever have sons equal to the task of
defending her, men uncorrupted by sensuality when she basks in sunshine,
undaunted by danger when tempests threaten her destruction. And with all
your boasts of making this land a Zoar and a Zion, I will tell you that
you will never make it the Jerusalem which is at unity with itself and
therefore meet for the residence of the Holy One, until it shall please
'God to bless the common people with sense to see that there is such a
sin as schism, and that they are not judges what schism is.' Peace is
not promoted by yielding to captious objections, but by subduing the
spirit, which is more prone to dispute than to obey. Those who dissent
from us say they only crave liberty, but when the church is overthrown
they will find that it is the spirit of domination which they mistook
for zeal in the cause of freedom. This will make every sect strive for
pre-eminence, and the hatred they now shew us will, if we are subdued,
be diverted from a superior whom they cease to fear, to equals whom they
wish to depress; the anarchy and discord they will then experience will
lead the moderate and well-informed to remember with regret the mild
government of the deposed church."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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