An apology for the Church of England in point of separation from it by ... William Lord Bishop of St. Davids.

About this Item

Title: An apology for the Church of England in point of separation from it by ... William Lord Bishop of St. Davids.
Author: Thomas, William, 1613-1689.
Publication: London :: Printed for William Leach ...,; 1679.
Rights/Permissions: To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
Subject terms: Church of England -- Apologetic works.; Dissenters, Religious -- England.
Cite this Item: "An apology for the Church of England in point of separation from it by ... William Lord Bishop of St. Davids." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A64560.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 5, 2024.

Pages

The LETTER.

They are noted by their perseverance, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

The ANSWER.

To indulge to you, that they all persevered to the end (though that is not recorded, and I formerly specified the revolt of some) this doth not wound the constant Members of the Church of England, nor blemish the Church for those that are inconstant. If you object this, as a cognizance of a sepa∣rate Church; I answer, you must yet plead your innocence, and leave the apology of perseverance (if you merit it) to another Generation. But alas, doth not the present Generation testi∣fie a daily Apostasie among your selves.

Page 55

Is not the abuse of Liberty by a licen∣tiousness of prophaneness turned blas∣phemy. Brownists corrupted to A∣nabaptists, Anabaptists to Seekers, See∣kers to Quakers. What can the next lees be? but the dreggs of Atheism, and Barbarism, unless the Jesuit angle in our troubled Waters. I relate not this scurrilously to scoff, but mournfully to condole. It is not the Sarcasm of my Pen, but the anguish of my soul. Hereby God is dishonoured, weak Christians perverted, the Protestant Religion scandalled, the Church of England, which was the envy of Christendom, become the obloquy of it.