performed by something as liable to your own Scruples as any thing injoyned or practised in the Church of England i. e. by some Symbolical Ceremonies that are not enjoyn'd in the word of God seeing it is plain that all outward Devotion can be express'd by nothing else and seeing it is as plain that there are no more prescribed in the Gospel than barely the two Sacraments from both which Premises nothing can be more plain than that Nonconformity to all customary and establish'd ways of worship whatsoever must upon your Principles be for ever unavoidable Your Sixth and last Play is pushpin-Divinity from this one would conclude I had written at least a Treatise upon this Argument and yet it is so far from being any head of my discourse that I only used it once as the most proper Term to express those childish Controversies that some men manage upon almost all the Articles of Religion and that signifie no more to the Edification of the Church than Boys Play does to the Government of the State But because you have so utterly mistaken the meaning of the Phrase and because I perceive you have not Divinity enough to set you up at Push-pin I will furnish you with a small stock of Instances 1. Whether Conversion be perform'd in an Instant or whether it be divided into several Acts and Scenes As 1. the work of Vocation is the Prologue 2. this vocation infuseth Faith only say some but Faith and Repentance say others and then 3. this Faith must be acted so that it seems Believers may have Faith before they act it i. e. they may believe before they believe then 4. by this Act we apprehend Christs Person and by this Apprehension we are united to him 5. from this Union proceed the Benefits 1. of Justification 2. of Sanctification 6. This Sanctification infuseth all other gracious habits and hath two degrees 1. Regeneration 2. Renascentia as they call it or the New-birth Upon this dispute a great many weighty Arguments are pusht pro and con and a great number of grave Divines engaged on both sides though in my opinion they had been as wisely employed in playing with the Boys at Push-pin as in finding ten real differences in one and the same thing 2. Whether the Word and Sacraments have only a moral Operation in the Conversion of a Sinner as a man draws an Horse to him by the sight of Provender or an Hog after him by the Ratling of Beans or whether they are only the Instrumental Cause to conveigh the Physical Operation of the Spirit as a Conduit-pipe does water But this Heresie the more Orthodox will by no means endure because it is evident to all that understand Metaphysicks that none of Suarez his conditions of an Instrumental efficient Cause are to be found in them and then the case is clear and the Controversie out of danger And yet there is a very moderate man and one that is much given to reconciling who ventures to declare that if any man had rather say that the word is Causa efficiens minus principalis Procatarctica that for his part he will not contend What a Condescension is here Were all the Divines in Christendom of this yielding temper how quickly should we see and rejoyce in that Catholick Unity that you in your deep Wisdome and Policy have set down for as crazy and impracticable an Undertaking as to dig through the separating Istmos of Peloponesus or to make a Communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean 3. Whether common and saving Grace differ only gradually or specifically and if specifically then whether it be only by a Moral or a Physical specification and when they discourse upon such heads and points they are wont to set as strong a Guard upon them of Chapter and Verse out of St. Paul's Epistles and to as little purpose as the Assembly-men did upon their darling and fundamental Doctrine of absolute and irrespective Reprobation though they were not satisfied with that but for greater security were solicitous to place it next to the existence of God and the Being of Providence Blessed Apostle shouldst thou but make a visit to the Christian World how wouldest thou stand aghast to see such a vast Body of Modern Orthodox Faith framed out of thy Writings distinct from and for the most part opposite to the old Christian Belief Shouldst thou peruse those strange Glosses and Commentaries that have of late been made upon thy Epistles how would it recover to thy Memory all that Gibberish in which thou wert so idly busie whilst thou sattest at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel How would it grieve thee to see so many Churches of thy own Plantation over-run with the Barbarism either of Turks or Heathens or School-men Little didst thou dream that ever thy Epistles should be brought upon the Stage to decide the difference between moral and physical Specification But yet to confess the Truth these were not the impertinent Fopperies I intended in that Expression the only thing I then glanced at was the undertaking in the Grotian Religion to prove that the disputes between the Calvinists and Arminians are more about words than matter which is pursued warmly and eagerly enough from Sect. 5. to Sect. 20. of the Preface all which the Reverend Bishop gravely and prudently baulkt as a matter altogether impertinent to his Argument and that would bear Eternal wrangle in the way of playing Scholastick heads and points And that you may be forced to acknowledge his Wisdome I will give you a summary Account of his Adversaries performance Imprimis to reconcile Gods absolute decree of Election of the lesser part of Mankind Antecedently to any Consideration of their Faith and Obedience and his absolute Decree of Reprobation to all the rest Antecedently to the deserts of their Impenitence and Infidelity to the Justice and Goodness of God Item to reconcile Christs suffering death for the Elect only that are the least part of Mankind without having any intent to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole World with the design of Universal Redemption Item to reconcile the loss of free will in all the posterity of Adam so as that they lye under an unavoidable necessity to do or not to do whatsoever they do or do not whether it be good or evil with the first Principles of Morality or the Right of Rewards and Punishments Item to reconcile Gods Method of saving his Elect from the corrupt Mass by begetting Faith in them with a Power equal to that wherewith he created the World and raised up the dead insomuch that such unto whom he gives that Grace cannot reject it and the rest being Reprobate cannot accept it though it be offer'd to both by the same preaching and Ministry with the Power of Election and Free Will Item to reconcile the Impossibility of falling away finally and totally notwithstanding the most enormous Crimes with the Power of Apostasie or the necessity of
a Jest or a Quibble in its confutation You are a right Champion for the Fanatique Cause that can confute any Argument with face and confidence There is no disputing such an Adversary without an head-piece This is only tilting of foreheads where the hardest skull not the fullest must get the victory Away you trifling Wretch talk you no more of Ecclesiastical Policy and hereafter never pretend to any knowledge that pretends either to Reason or Modesty for had you any sense of the former you would never have been so silly as to be so seriously scared at such an innocent and undeniable proposition or any of the latter you could never have been so impudent as to bray forth such a confident and heinous censure against it as if it were notoriously evident without proof that it directly subverts all the Principles of Religion and Government And therefore I would fain know in good earnest what your meaning was in making your first onset upon this Grand Thesis If you intended its Confutation why have you not discharged so much as one semi-vowel of exception against it If you did not to what purpose is it to trouble your self and the world with its Quotation A man in my Opinion had as good altogether unless he be very idle keep his mouth shut as gape and yet say nothing If this be the Grand Thesis in comparison whereof the rest of my Assertions as you inform us are to be reckoned no better than sneaking Corollaries and if I bottom all the foundations of Government and Religion upon it and make it more necessary to the support of the World than the Pillars of the Earth or the eight Elephants one would think this if any thing should have been battered down with knocking and dead-doing Arguments and here if any where one would have expected you should have given an hot and fierce alarm and have drawn up all your squadrons of vowels mutes semi-vowels and liquids and by the next Gazet to have heard of a sorer and more dreadful battel than ever was fought in your Grammar-War or my Roman Empire Now after all this Threatning and Preparation what a disappointment must it be to the Readers and Spectators to see so proud an He that bore up so bravely and with such a manful Confidence come off with this soft and gentle Rebuke Verily and indeed now it is a naughty Proposition ay and all that Thou a Rat-Divine thou hast not the Wit and Learning of a Mouse when thou endeavour'st to bite thou canst not so much as nibble Thou talk of Government of the Crowns and State of Princes to School Truant mind your Push-pin and con your eight parts of Speech and presume not hereafter to cavil at things that are above the capacity and concern of Boys and Girls and sucking-bottles And yet to the same purpose that is to none at all is that tedious train of Quotations that you bring in at the tail of this without passing any smarter remarque upon them than the same general censure of Malignancy though if they are chargeable there was no need of your Edition for they were in print before and therefore it is but sit you should be endited for a scandalous Plagiary to transcribe so much of my Book to no other purpose than only to make up 6 pages towards your full tale of 326. I believe it will be found against the Laws of the Stationers-hall for your Book-seller to print so much of another mans Copy after it is enter'd according to Order without his leave and consent and I hope M r Martyn will seek his remedy against the Assigns of John Calvin and Theodore Beza They are bold and sawcy fellows as it is the nature of every thing to be so that relates to Geneva But you and I will not concern our selves in their Controversies they know without our information as well as any Vermine in Christendom how to manage their own Affairs by the intrigues and mysteries of their own Trade At least it more concerns me to keep close to your self for they tell me that if a man will keep continually running after a mad dog it is the only way to secure himself from being bitten Tell me therefore quickly in answer to the Grand Thesis do you seriously believe that his Majesty has no Power in matters of Religion What then becomes of all your Acts of Parliament against Popery ever since the Reformation nay what then becomes of the Declaration it self for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience in which his Majesty declares that he therein only makes use of that Supreme Power in Ecclesiastical Matters which is not only inherent in the Crown but has been declared and recognized to be so by several Statutes and Acts of Parliament Beside do you not think it possible for men to create publique disturbances under pretences of Religion Was there never any Rebellion carried on by popular Zeal and Reformation Did you never hear of any men that set up Christs Standard in defiance to their Princes and that fought against his Person at least only to carry on the work of the Lord and that have murther'd and banisht Kings only to dethrone Antichrist and the Whore You so great a Traveller and did you never hear the Countrey people tell stories of the merry pranks of John of Leydon and the Anabaptists of Germany You so great an Historian and never read of any Kingdomes and Empires some time or other embroil'd or destroyed by Arts of Religion You would be an Historian indeed if you could but name any one Nation in the World whose Annals do not afford us variety of sad stories to this purpose And then after all this dare you be so confident as to declare it is absolutely unlawful and in all cases for any Prince to claim or exercise any Authority over Conscience or Religion If you dare not but allow a necessity of Coercion in some cases then after all your confidence you grant the truth and justifie the innocence of the Grand Thesis viz. That it is necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Common-wealth should be vested with a Power to govern and conduct the Consciences of Subjects in affairs of Religion An Assertion so obvious and so harmless that never any People in the World had so little brains or so much forehead as to deny it to all Intents but only the salvage Anabaptists of Germany and they indeed claim'd an absolute exemption from the Civil Power for themselves and that only upon the priviledge of Saint-ship but then they equally cancell'd all Government and protested against all manner of Subjection either to Secular or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But excepting these inhumane Canibals this Grand Thesis that you suppose to be so grosly absurd that barely to name it is enough to expose the person that shall maintain it as an open enemy to God and Man is so granted and undoubted
length approved and publish'd special care being taken I still relye upon the Kings word that the small alterations of it in which it differs from the English Liturgy should be such as might best comply with the minds and dispositions of the Scots and prevent all grounds of fear or jealousie and chiefly to avoid all misconstruction that some Factious Spirits would have put upon it as a badge of that Churches dependance upon the Church of England if it had been the same with the English Service-Book totidem verbis And this was the Liturgy that no doubt might be an occasion of exasperating the Bramble-Faction that were already ripe for Rebellion and resolved to improve all disgusts whether just or unjust real or pretended to authorize their disloyal resolutions But to let you into the main Mystery the circumstance that gave life and vigour to their designs was the Act of Revocation that it seems hapned to be set on foot not long before by which the King intended the Revocation of those Lands of the Church that in the minority of King James the Great Men had to the prejudice of the Crown seized on and shared among themselves to which the Occupants having no other Title beside impudent Sacriledge and Usurpation the King thought he might justly challenge them for his own Use at least from the present Possessours A course warranted as himself still tells me both by the Laws of that Kingdom and the frequent examples of his Royal Progenitors And this you may believe was provocation enough to put them into an uproar and the People were perswaded as I am informed by a good Authour from the mouth of a Noble Lord that the intendment of the Act was to revoke all former Laws for suppressing of Popery and setling the Reformed Religion in the Kirk of Scotland and this raised such Tumults that the King was forced to desist from the prosecution of the Act under that Title and to carry it on though with much opposition under another Name of a Commission of Surrendries a thing so offensive to the stomachs of the Lords of the Erection as the Lay Impropriators were there call'd that they could never digest it but first according to the usual method vented their choler in Libels and then in Rebellion For though they were satisfied for their Tythes to the utmost farthing according to the Rates of purchasing in that Kingdom yet this fretted them that they saw themselves rob'd of the dependence of the Clergy and Laity upon their Power and of that Sovereign Command and Superiority which they had by the tye of Tythes exercised over them several wayes as the King will inform you And this was the reason of State beside the ease of his Subjects that moved his Majesty to issue out this Commission For before the greatest part of the Laity were Vassals by Tenure and all the Clergy slaves by custom to the Nobility And therefore they immediately set themselves to work the People to a disaffection to his Majesties Government and to perswade them that these were the contrivances of the Bishops and that under them there were dangerous innovations design'd upon their Religion So that 't is plain as the King observes that before either the Service-Book or Book of Canons so tragically now exclaimed against were thought on the seeds of Sedition and discontent were sowen by the Contrivers of the Covenant first upon the occasion of the Revocation next upon occasion of the Commission of Surrenders and lastly upon occasion of his denying honours to some of them at his last being in that Kingdom of which he has there given a large and particular account and this brought forth first private traducing his Government and then publique Libels And now by this time Sedition was grown so ripe and ready to seed that it wanted nothing to thrust it out and make it shoot forth into an open Rebellion but some fair and specious pretence They could not yet compass the Cloak of Religion whereby to siel the eyes and muffle the face of the Multitude for by none of the three former Occasions could they so much as pretend that Religion was endanger'd or impeach'd But so soon as they got but the least hint of any thing which they thought might admit a misconstruction that way they lost no time but took Occasion by the fore-lock knowing that either that or nothing would first facilitate and then perfect their designs Now the occasion they took of fetching Religion within the reach of their Pretences was the new Liturgy And this produced I still relye upon the Kings Authority the late wicked Covenant or pretended Holy League Though following the pattern of all other Seditions they did pretend Religion yet nothing was less intended by them For when they had sayes the Royal Understanding received from us full satisfaction to all their desires expressed in any of their Petitions Remonstrances or Declarations their persisting for all that in their tumultuous and rebellious Courses doth demonstrate to the world their weariness of being govern'd by us and our Laws by our Council and other Officers put in Authority by and under us and an itching humour of having that our Kingdom governed by a Table of their own devising consisting of Persons of their own choosing A Plot of which they are very fond being an abortion of their own brain but which indeed is such a monstrous birth as the like has not yet been born or bred in any Kingdom Jewish Christian or Pagan Of which he afterwards describes a particular Plat-form as it was put in practice at Edinburgh And thus observe it you shall still find a Common-wealth and Sacriledge at the bottom of all Rebellion that appears under the mask and pretence of Religion And it was these men that raised the Tumults and trinkled the Rabble into all those disorderly courses that by degrees brought forth the Covenant and the War And it is pretty observable that the first Remonstrance at Edinburgh was made in the name of the Men Women Children and Servants who being urged with the Book of Service and having consider'd the same the Children as well as the rest humbly shew c. These were followed by the Burghours and the Burghours by the Gentry and Nobility And so at length did the Scotch-war break out in which the Liturgy was no more concern'd than the Children of Edinburgh whose tender Consciences it seems were offended at it though in truth they deserved to be soundly whipt for beginning a War for the Cause when the Cause was too good to be fought for And now consider whether you had not been better advised to let this business of the War alone when you can no other way bring your Clients off with reputation unless the King will be content to suffer Himself his Royal Father and his Loyal Subjects to be impeach'd of their Rebellion For the blame of it must light somewhere and therefore if the