him my thanks for instead of an Answer to them or would have done my best to have written a Panegyrick upon that Noble Motto Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae That after all is the onely mighty and irresistable Argument that remains to be answered in this matter but I wont undertake it since it has been done to my hands by all the Parliaments and all the Convocations in England ever since the Barons wars unless by the present Convocation which has done nothing whose mind we do not yet know and till we doe it may pass for an infallible Council for surely Vox Cleri is not the mouth of it nor is our Author to be taken as the Churches Representative or Procurator General or to be allowed so many Proxies as shall make up a House But though he calls his Book Vox Cleri yet Tuba Stentorophonica Balaam's Ass prophesying or the like Title might have been as significant and suited it as well Having seen what he has to say on one side I am now to consider what has been or may be offered on the other and what he has to say against them The Reasons for some Abatements and Alterations at this time are so plain and considerable so great and important as shows the manifest expediency if not necessity of doing it and our Author has so little to say against it though he was bound to say what he could that he has thereby done more to give up the cause and satisfie every impartial man about it than if he had industriously pleaded for it though I will not say as he does of one of the Letters that a man would think this Writer to have been hired to betray the cause by his weak and impertinent arguments for its Defence for I believe our Author does honestly what he can and I don't suspect any treachery at all in his writing unless it be between his Will and his Understanding and I doubt the one does a little trick and impose upon the other for were it not for his implacable aversion and ill-will to the Fanaticks and Latitudinarians I am very confident that his Reason is for Alterations and Abatements by the little he has to say to the contrary and to the obvious and important reasons for them and because he himself so often and so expresly declares for them in his good moods and lucid intervals The first objection which he makes to himself and which rose up in his own thoughts for 't is not in answer to any of the Letters is this p. 5. Herein we may please the King the Parliament and a great part of the dissenting Laity which if it be true is very considerable Now as to the latter the dissenting Laity I don't know what to say to the great ones and the Politico's among them who are for keeping up a Separate Party as a Civil Faction in the State whom they who are the Heads of it and would make but an inconsiderable figure without it can manage upon occasion and have it ready raised and formed for their designs and I doubt they will not be so well pleased to have this and therefore themselves lessened by lessening the strength and number of the Separation as I hope the best and most honest of the Dissenting Laity will who are more concerned for the sincere good of Religion than carrying on Designs and Intrigues who will no doubt follow and accompany their Leaders into the Church as they went out with them But this I hope will be so far from being an objection to our Author or any Church of England man against Alterations and a Comprehension that it must be a very strong Argument for it since 't is the Schism and Separation in the Church that keeps up those Parties and Factions in the State which help to disturb the civil peace and quiet of the Kingdom and has been the cause of the greatest confusions in it so that whoever is a lover of the Church or Kingdom must be desirous to have an end put to them as far as is possible that we may unite in one religious and civil Interest As to the pleasing the King and Parliament hereby that I think is not to be doubted since the Parliament addressed to the King for calling a Convocation and the King was pleased thereupon to call one for this very end and design and to grant a Commission as has been usual in the like case to prepare things in order to it so that 't is to be feared that some men who are no great friends to the present settlement and constitution and who are upon some account angry and discontented are at the bottom of all this heat and stiffness against Alterations and who make use of others as Tools to work and hammer out their Designs by or at least to keep up a noise and disturbance among us as if great numbers were dissatisfied because they themselves are so for private reasons These men are mighty zealous against the Churches making any Alterations in the Circumstantials of Religion till the Court makes some Alterations in the Substantial places of profit I know we complain on all sides of being made and used as Tools as if this were the Fate of Churchmen and Religion were only an Engine in their hands charged with the terrors of another world to doe Execution only in this Our Author wishes he could leave his Countrey Minister who wrote one of the Letters well in his wits to consider whether he be not used as a Tool to destroy the established Church p. 42. by some who think themselves mighty Politicians Nay he tells us That the Authors of the two Letters may be Papists who by such Arts seek to divide that they may destroy us Now this is the deepest Plot of the Papists if it be one that ever was laid to destroy and blow up the Church and if those who are for Alterations in order to unite Protestants and strengthen the Church are Tools in the hands of Papists or other Politicians to destroy it the Church is in a lamentable condition and must necessarily be destroyed both by its friends and its enemies too and by those ways which in all appearance tend most to preserve it and the Design is laid so secretly and to be wrought so strangely that 't is impossible to prevent it On the other side 't is plain and notorious matter of fact that some Great Discontented Lay-men though not so Great as they would be did manage several of our stiff men against Alterations It was not so much behind the Curtain but the hands were seen if not the wires which moved the Puppets besides the dissatisfied Bishops and Clergy who have not taken the Oaths nor will own the present Government had more influence upon those who have sworn to the present King and Queen and most solemnly recognized them in the name of the Church of England than could be expected that men of such
AN ANSWER TO Vox Cleri c. EXAMINING The REASONS against making any Alterations and Abatements In order to A Comprehension AND Shewing the EXPEDIENCY thereof LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1690. AN ANSWER TO Vox Cleri c. AN ANSWER TO Vox Cleri c. THE Author of Vox Cleri writes as if he were Clerk or Secretary to the Convocation and so delivered the sense of that whole venerable Assembly for why else does he give such a Title to his Book to amuse the World and bring a scandal upon the Clergy as if they were generally of his mind and yet he tells us that nothing has been proposed to them so that they have not yet declared their minds nor had an opportunity to doe so and I think he has done them a great deal of injury first to suppose and then tell all the World that they are against Alterations and Abatements in some indifferent matters for the sake of that Peace and Union which is the desire and should be the endeavour of every good man I shall be very unwilling to believe so ill of so many wise and worthy men that they are against such a Design so much for the honour of God the good of Religion in general the Peace of the Kingdom and the Interest of the Church of England I cannot think that any man in cool and sober thoughts can be against it unless he be transported with some fit of anger or which is as outragious of eloquence and then such a rash saying as Nolumus mutare leges Angliae may come out without reason and ought to be forgiven among friends but however the words chimed in a Speech to the Tune of Christ-church-bells yet they were as senseless and impertinent as this Authour's quotation out of Solomon on the Banner of his Book Meddle not with them that are given to change which would have served the Quaker as well against changing his old cloaths as the design and business they are brought for but if there had been no changes since Solomon's time nor since the Barons in the Laws of England we had been in a very primitive but not quite so good a state as at present But this Gentleman seems to be under some great fear as well as anger as if he were to be executed at the will of the rabble What he has done I cannot tell but he seems for some reason or other to be afraid to go home he complains he has not the privilege of other Malefactours which all Law and Equity gives them of making a defence especially when their reputation their livelyhoods and even their lives are concerned so that he seems to be under some dread and terrour that has scared him not out of his lively hood or his life I hope but of something else I fear that makes him write as he does for he contradicts himself almost in the same line and owns that several times in a good mood which he writes all along against He and the Clergy in his Neighbourhood are very inclinable he says to part with several Ceremonies and to submit to many Alterations for the Peace of the Church and Satisfaction of sober Dissenters (a) p. 1. Yet he musters up all the reasons he can against this and his whole Book is writ against it The end of the Commission is he says to take away all occasions of difference for the future as well as reconciling all their Majesties subjects at present A Blessing this to be seriously endeavoured by all persons but rather to be hoped for than expected (b) p. 17. If to be seriously endeavoured by all persons why does he all he can against any such endeavours In another place (c) p. 26. I do here protest that were it not that the Dissenters have given us an Assurance that though these and many other alterations should be made it would give them no satisfaction nor bring them into our Communion I would use all the interest I have for such Alterations and for that end also part with many other Ceremonies I cannot believe the Dissenters have given him any such assurance if they have I hope he knows them better than to trust them but how is this reconcileable with what he so often harps upon that if they did come in it would make a worse schism in the Church and so be more mischievous than that out of it It cannot be a crime says he very angrily not to doe that which is both against the Law of the Land and the dictates of their own Consciences by the bye I would fain know where that Law of the Land or those dictates of Conscience are to be found that forbid a Convocation to make Alterations But in the same line he goes on and says It is not a crime for a man not to doe what none as yet hath required of him to doe how does he then know that 't is both against the Law of the Land and the dictates of their own Consciences Something therefore seems to have injured this Gentleman's memory and reason and his imagination seems to be disturbed with fears of the Rabble or somebody's having some strange design upon him for being against Alterations and therefore he draws in the dark at all adventures and stands upon his guard and throws about him it being a thing natural he tells us for a man to defend himself there being no living creature so void of sense as not to avoid another that attempts to destroy him and every worm will turn upon him that will tread on it and if an innocent person chance to injure another that injuriously assaults him he is always held guiltless as having done it Se defendendo Why really I pity this Gentleman's case if it be thus with him for one would think he were in some great pain and peril but we have reason to be angry with those that have thus assrighted him for otherwise we had had a better Book or which had been as well none at all That terrible word Latitudinarian (a) p. 6. has scared him I doubt and 't is almost as dreadfull as Vercingentorix and some timorous old men can hardly speak or hear it without trembling they imagine some Monster by it of a mighty swallow and wide capacity having both a Church and a Conventicle if not a Pope in its belly tearing and devouring the Ceremonies mangling and altering the Liturgy snarling and biting at Episcopacy and gaping for the Preferments which other men have signally deserved and are legally possessed of Now such a creature as this may be in some void space of a Map or of an old Man's head but no where else that I know of But I suppose this new Sect or Heresie are for making Alterations and therefore our Authour is so angry with it and resolved to confute it and since he and his Neighbours in the Countrey
p. 11. That as some might come in so others that were in our Communion might take offence by the Alterations and detest it and seeing our frequent changes in some things they might suppose that there is nothing certain among us and from the many disputes about our Liturgy proceed to question our Articles and at last fall off to the Church of Rome which they saw more constant to their Principles Now they must have a very mean opinion of the Churches Prudence and give very little deference to her Authority that shall be offended at her making such Alterations in things that she always declared are in their own nature indifferent and alterable and which she has reserved to her self a power to alter according to the exigency of times and occasions and upon such prudential reasons as she shall think fit of which she is alone the most proper Judge for as our Authour says The People ought not to prescribe to the Church in such things but the Church to them They must therefore be no very dutifull and obedient Sons of the Church who shall not be satisfied with such Alterations as she shall think fit to make for the ends of peace and concord and the allaying those heats and divisions that are among us They must have a very wrong and superstitious opinion of the outward Rites and Ceremonies and Circumstantials of Religion who lay so much weight and stress upon them as to think that there is any great matter in them besides their subserviency to outward order and decency or that they are so necessary to those that the Divine Worship may not be performed as acceptably and reverently without some of them as with them It is to be feared that such weak persons have not been sufficiently instructed in the nature of things Indifferent when they are so zealous for those above the weightier matters of Peace and Charity to which they ought always to give way If some zealous or designing men have drawn ignorant and well meaning persons into a greater opinion and admiration of themselves by ceremonious formalities and overdoings by unprescribed bowings and cringes by prostrations at the Eucharist and the like inventions of their own they have used the same ways that other Fanaticks have done to fill up their Congregations with gathering out of other Churches by shews of greater piety and devotion and have hereby broken the settled orders of the Church and opened a gap for all the follies of an indiscreet zeal and forward superstition whereby some pious but not wise men have in all ages brought innumerable fopperies and singularities into the Church to the great mischief of Religion But surely a Church that thinks it not necessary to bring men to a Religion by any such superstitious devices but by more true and rational methods of a sober and discreet Piety and needs not to make use of any such tricks and pious frauds to impose upon the folly and weakness of its Votaries nor has any paltry and by ends to be served by such Religious Cheats should put a timely stop to all such ceremonial excesses and honestly teach all its Members that Religion lies not in any such shews or forms of Godliness but in sober and manly devotion and in a vertuous and good life Now when men have such a true notion of Religion which the Church ought always to give them and to correct all mistakes to the contrary there will be no great danger that they should be much offended at the loss or alteration of a few Rites or Ceremonies which are no more of the Essence of Religion than our Cloaths are of the Essence of a Man who so long as he is decently habited according to the custom of the Countrey he may leave it to the Governours thereof to change the mode as they think fit But above all folks commend me to those in our Communion who our Author tells us may take such offence at our Alterations as to desert us and fall off to the Church of Rome p. 11. These do well understand and have been well instructed in the Religion of the Church of England who can make no difference between baptizing with the Cross as a signal of Christianity and adoring it as an object of worship between kneeling at the Sacrament and worshipping the Host but however this is a terrible danger if by bringing some ost from Fanaticism we shall be likely to make others Papists which is ten times worse let us therefore see what reason our Author may have to fear this Why seeing our frequent changes in some things they may suppose that there is nothing certain among us and from the many disputes about our Liturgy proceed to question our Articles and at last fall off to the Church of Rome which they saw more constant to their Principles If they are for such a constant Church as shall never make any Alterations then indeed they must be for an Infallible one and none bids at that but the Church of Rome but yet still she has made very often great changes and alterations in her Liturgies and Ceremonies and often corrected and reformed her Breviaries and Missals so that if this shall shake and startle a man and by seeing so many alterations about those things in their Church he shall suppose there is nothing more certain in that than in ours I hope he will quickly come back again like a fool as he went He must be a Member of no Church i' th' world nor ever could have been since the beginning of Christianity who will desert and leave it for this reason because it has made frequent Alterations in its Liturgy and Ceremonies and if a man will be so fickle and sceptical as by seeing frequent changes in such things to suppose there is nothing certain among us and from some disputes about Liturgies question the Articles of a Church and at last fall to what is more constant in its Principles he must e'en fall off from all Churches and from all Religion and for the same reason from all living under Laws and Government for there are disputes and alterations about those and from eating and drinking too for all men are not agreed in the same meat and drink or way of dressing it nor have always thought fit to stick to one way of Brewing or Cookery Thus I have fairly examined our Author's Arguments against making Alterations and where there was any seeming weight in them I have fully considered it where they were weak and ridiculous I have made bold to expose them for the Book was put out and fell into my hands in a time of merryment and I was very curious to see what some folks could say for themselves I assure him had he or his Neighbours in the Countrey shewed any good reasons why they are so stiff against Alterations that could have convinced me that they were prejudicial to Religion or disserviceable to the Church I would have sent