Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/29

 himself for the Church of England, should not know what is meant by the Protestant Religion. This was seconded with great pleasantness by Divers of the Lords the Bishops; but the Bishop of Winchester, and some others of them were pleased to condescend to instruct that Lord, that the Protestant Religion was comprehended in 39 Articles, the Liturgie, the Catechisme, the Homilies, and the Canons. To this the Earl of Shaftsbury replied, that he begg'd so much Charity of them to believe, that he knew the Protestant Religion so well, and was so confirmed in it, that he hoped he should burn for the witness of it, if Providence should call him to it: But he might perhaps think some things not necessary, that they accounted Essential, nay he might think some things not true, or agreeable to the Scripture, that they might call Doctrines of the Church: Besides when he was to swear never to endeavor to alter, it was certainly necessary to know how far the just extent of this Oath was; but since they had told him that the Protestant Religion was in those 5 tracts, he had still to ask, whether they meant those whole Tracts were the Protestant Religion, or only that the Protestant Religion was contained in all those, but that every part of these was not the Protestant Religion. If they meant the former of these then he was extreamly in the dark to find the Doctrine of Predestination in the 18. and 17. Art. to be owned by so few great Doctors of the Church, and to find the 19. Art. to define the Church directly as the In­dependents do: Besides the 20. Art. stating the Authority of the Church is very dark, and either contradicts it self, or says nothing, or what is contrary to the known Laws of the Land; besides several other things, in the 39 Articles, have been Preached, and Writ against by Men of great Favor, Power, and Preferment in the Church. He humbly conceived the Liturgie was not so sacred, being made by Men the other day, and thought to be more differing from the dissenting Protestants, and less easy to be complyd with, upon the advantage of a pretense well known unto us all, of making alterations as might the better unite us; in stead whereof, there is scarce one alteration, but widens the breach, and no ordination allow'd by it here, (as it now stands last reformed in the Act of Uniformity) but what is Episcopall; in so much that a Popish Priest is capable, when converted, of any Church preferment without Reordination; but no Protestant Minister not Episcopally ordain'd, but is required to be reordain'd, as much as in us lies unchurching all the forreign Protestants, that have not Bishops, though the contrary was both allow'd, and practis'd from the beginning of the Reformation till the time of that Act, and several Bishops made of Rh