so that they were ejected not for Conscience but Intrusion whether they were just 1600 is not worth enquiry but that they all suffer'd for Conscience cannot be so clear as he pretends for I suppose neither he nor we can know the Consciences of 1600 without something of Omniscience but that all the 1600 did suffer by long Imprisonment is an unconscionable overlashing and 't is as clear as the Sun that it is a notorious Falshood He adds That many of them have dyed for want of natural Bread and that both the Shepheards and the Flocks have been starved What! Have their Ministers died with Famine Have whole Congregations perished for want of Bread This is certainly all Fiction and Romance or if you will the Rhetorick of common beggars who with doleful Complaints of Starving cheat the People into Compassion I Grant That many Families of Dissenters have been distress'd by Penal Laws thô I think he can never make it out that they were many thousands But the conclusion of this Tragedy is beyond measure extravagant If says be the Sufferings of our Brethren were written at large as the Sufferings of the Saints at other times have been Mr. Fox his Book of Martyrs would be but an Enchiridion in comparison of it That Work is an account of the Sufferings of Christians from the Crucisixion of our Saviour to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and as Voluminous as it is it has not bulk enough for the Dissenters Sufferings since the Restauration nay it is but a little Epitome in comparison They alas have suffered more in 30 years than the whole Church in 1600 and the Martyrologies of the whole Catholick Church may be infinitely exceeded by the Acts and Monuments of a few little Conventicles One would think that many Myriads of Dissenters had suffered Martyrdom That every individual Church of England-man had destroyed as many as Dioclesian and that all England had been a Sea of Blood for 30 years together when in the mean time not one of them suffered death for his Religion not many of them were ruined in their Estates and pecuniary punishments were the only persecution of almost all of them Yet he has the Confidence to say * P. 11. That the Church of England had taken into her hand the Bloody Club of Cain to Martyr the Dissenters that his Weapon was a Club is revealed to him by * P. 4. Bucheltzerus to whom the Cabala was deriv'd but that the Church of England has used it against the Dissenters is the revelation of Beelzebub for the Father of Lyes can be his only Author for it Let him name but one Dissenter that has been martyr'd by the Church and he shall have my Licence to revile her with all the odious Names from Coin to the Apocalyptick Whore in Scripture But if that be impossible he may still revile if he please but I think he will be no where believed but in his Conventicle and his Patmos so the place of his retreat is * Ep. Ded. called by the fifth Evangelist that he may be paralell'd to one of the former But this magnifying of Sufferings is an old Artifice of Dissenters so did their Ancestors the Donatists as may be seen in St. Austin and so did the Popish Priests their late Brethren and Allies in the time of Queen Elizabeth as may be seen in Creswell's Philopater and the Books of Parsons Behold how one of them exclaimeth Where are now the old Tyrants of the World Nero Decius Dioclesian Maxentius and the rest of the great Persecutors of the Christious Where is Genserick and Hunricus with their Arrian Hereticks Alluding to the Persecutions of the State here as infinitely beyond them This was just such another Outcry about Persecution as this Ministers And how did the States-men of those Times apologize for their Severity * See a Treatise of the Lord Burluigh Entitled The Execution of Justice in England for Maintenance of publick Peace The sum of thier defence was this That what they did was necessary to the Preservation of the State and that their Treasons and Seditions occasion'd the hard Laws against them And Will not the same defence serve to justifie the Laws against the Dissenters The severest * As the 1 Eliz. c. 2.23 Eliz. c. 1.35 Eliz. c. 1. Laws and the severest Proceedings against them were in the Time of Queen Elizabeth they were then suspended deprived imprison'd banish'd and some of them even * Barrow and Greenwood executed for their scandalous Writings and the ground of these Proceedings may be learnt from the Queen her self in the Speech of the Lord Keeper Puckering to the Parliament * Transeribed by Dr. Pierce from his own hand Writing and Published in his Discovery against Mr. Baxter an 1659. p. 109. which was delivered by her Command and Direction There he tells them That they were commanded by her Majesty to give no ear to the Sollicitations of the Puritans of whom he declares It may be doubted whether they or the Jesuits do offer more danger or be more speedily to be repressed and this Reason is there given for it because they publish in their Books and teach in all their Conventicles sundry Opinions not only dangerous to the Realm but also Derogatory to her sacred Majesty and her Crown and by Separation of themselves from the Vnity of their fellow Subjects and by abusing the sacred Authority of their Prince they do joyn with the Jesuits in opening the Door and preparing the Way to the Spanish Invasion that is threatned against the Realm Thus far the Queen her self by the Mouth of her Lord Keeper and so effectual was this Speech that the Parliament then passed the Act of the 35 Eliz. the severest against the Dissenters in the whole Body of our Laws But a larger account of the true Reasons of those hard Laws against the Papists and Dissenters may be seen in a * It is printed at large in Dr. Burnet's Hist of the Reform par 2 lib. 3. p. 420. Letter of Sir Francis Walsingham her Secretary to Monsieur Chiroy a Frenchman The Preservation of the State against their Seditious Practices is there assign'd as the true Cause of those Severities And as to the Puritans he concludes that after they had been a great while tolerated When they desended into that vile and base Means of Defacing the Government of the Church by ridiculous Pasquils when they began to make many Subjects in doubt to take Oaths which is one of the fundamental Points of Justice in all Places when they began both to vaunt of their Strength and Number of their Partizans and to use Comminations that their Cause would prevail through uproar and violence then it appeared to be no more Deal no more Canscience but meer Faction and Division and therefore though the State were compell'd to hold somewhat a harder hand to restrain them than before yet was it with as great a moderation as
the Peace of the State or Church could permit Such were the Reasons of the Laws and Prosecutions against them in the happy Days of Queen Elizabeth And have not these Observations been since confirm'd by woful Experience Is it any wonder that at the Restoration of our Church and Covernment which had been destroy'd by a most unjustifiable Rebellion when the whole Kingdom had been turn'd into an Aceldama and the best of Kings was barbarously murdered the Law-givers should look back upon the Miseries they had felt and secure the King the Kingdom and the Church against the increase of those Sectaries that had so lately destroy'd them and yet it is notorious that these Laws were never rigorously executed but when necessity requir'd it Their Assemblies were ever tolerated or connived at when themselves were pleased to shew that favour to the Government but when they began to libel associate and plot against the King and it was evident that the ruin of Church and State was again attempted and all the Sectaries were ready to contribute their Strength and Power to effect it was it not then high time for the Government to oppose them to secure it self by the Execution of Laws and to prosecute those who were resolved to ruin it They had Liberty enough till it was made a Cloak of Maliciousness and the Government did never persecute them but when it was persecuted by them How impertinem then is it to clamour at the Church because the State made Laws for its own preservation How unjust to arraign their Governors as Tyrannical because they would not be destroyed and how impious to call suffering for Sedition I ersecution for the Gospel If these Ministers had any regard to the Judgment of St. * Aug. Tom. 2. Epist 48. contra Donat. Rogat devi Corrig Haeret. Augustine it would be to some purpose to ranscribe the essicacious Reasons with which he justifies the use of Temporal Penalties for the reducing of Dissenters but however they may deal with him the agreement of their chief Divines the declar'd Judgment of their infallible Assembly and their own undeniable practice when they had power will be enough to silence and condemn them The Dissenters of late have wearied the World with their outcries against Persecution they have magnified Liberty of Conscience as the Magna Charta of Mankind and cryed it up in their Addresses to K. James as the restoring of God himself to his Empire But nothing in the World that thinks and sees can possibly believe them for their own Writings both past and present do manifestly shew that they never condemn Persecution but when they cannot Persecute It may be prov'd by a vast cloud of witnesses That Toleration has been ever damn'd by the Presbyterians and therefore it unavoidably follows that Persecution has been ever approv'd by them I could make good this by a deduction from their first Apostle Mr. Cartwright to their present Patriarch Mr. Baxter but in a Matter so notorious so much labour is unnecessary I appeal to the Testimonies of * They were these Dr. Burgess Mr. Ward Mr. William Good Mr. Tho. Thorowgood Mr. Humf. Hardwick Arthur Salwey Will. Reynar Geo. Hughes Edm. Calamy Tho. Case John Lightfoot Tho. Watson R. Baxter Tho. Horton Lazarus Serman Matt. Newcomen Richard Vines Simeon Ash James Crauford Tho. Edwards Twenty of their most eminent Preachers who in the Reign of Presbytery did in their Sermons and Writings with great Zeal inveigh against Toleration as unlawful in it self and destructive unto Church and State I refer you likewise to a very pathetical Letter to the Assembly Subscribed by all the London Divines Ann. 16â—5 wherein they expresly Declare their abhorrence of Toleration and exhort the Assembly to allow no Liberty to the Independants as being notorious Schis maticks and both this Letter and that collection of Tostimonies are to be found in a Pamphlet Entituled Toleration disprov'd which was Printed at Oxford Ann. 1670. But hear the Divines of that Assembly it self expostulating with their Dissenting Brethren the Independants * Papers of Accommodation cited by Dr. Still in his Sermon about the mischief of Separation p. 41 42. They desire an Answer to this one thing Whether some must be denied Liberty of their Conscience in matter of Practice ctice or none If none then say they we must renounce our Covenant and let in Prelacp again and all other ways If a denial of Liberty unto some may be just then Vniformity may be selted without any Tyranny They charge them farther with * Cited out of the same Papers in his unreasonableness of Speararation p. 69. opening a gap for all Sects to challenge such a Liberty as their due And add That this Liberty was denied by the Churches of New England and they have as just grounds to deny it as tdey Thus we see that not the Presbyterians only but even the new Light of Independancy is against Toleration and that persecution of Dissenters was not only their Doctrine but their Vow and Covenant also In that Covenant they Swore to extirpate Prelacy and to endeavour after Vniformity in Doctrine Discipline and Worship and is it not a wonderful Confidence in this Minister to Arraign the Church for persecuting and at the same time to contend for the obligation of a persecuting Covenant to reckon Vniformity among the accursed Stuff and then Declare that they are bound by Oath to settle it But their practice at last is the clearest demonstration of their Doctrine Behold an * An Ordinance for putting in execution the Directory August 11. 1645. Ordinance of Parliament against the use of the Liturgy If any person hereafter shall at any time use or cause to be used the Book of Common Prayer in any Church or Publick place of Worship or in any Private place or Family within the Kingdom every person so offending for the first offence shall pay the sum of Five for the Second Ten pounds and for the Third shall suffer One whole years imprisonment without Bail or Mainprize Do any of our Laws forbid the dissenters to serve God in their own Families as they please or where is there such an abridgment of Liberty in our Statute Book But yet their proceedings were much more cruel than their Ordinances so far were they from allowing any indulgence to the Church of England that they would not allow Liberty of Conscience to the Supreme Head and Governor of it They refused to permit their King the use of the Common Prayer in his own Chappel and infisted to obtrude the Directory upon him against his Conscience so that he had reason to complain as he did Decl. of Jun. 18. after the Votes of Nun-Addresses of their offering violence to the Conscience of their Sovereign and to say If it be Liberty of Conscience they desire he who wants it is most ready to give it Nay those Prosbyterians when they had him in their custody were
Canons and Separation for them is alike unlawful He observes further that there were several Liturgies allowed even in the Roman Communion and that this Branch of the Churches Liberty was taken away by the Council of Trent and here in England by the Reformation And what was that Liberty which was thus abridged Not an Arbitrary Liberty in every Pastor of a Parish to use what Form he pleased but the use of different Rules of Prayer that were before prescribed and practiced in different National Churches and Dioceses The different Offices in England as those for instance after the use of Sarum and York did agree in Substance they had the same Forms of Prayer and differed for the most part in Rubricks and Ritualities only and when our first Reformers established an uniform Order it was not esteemed an Encroachment upon Christian Liberty neither are Unity Order and Uniformity the less valuable because Councils and Popes were for them 5. His next Reason is an Invective against the Introducers of Liturgies and in the midst of it he defines ex Cathedrd That the Liturgies which bear the great Names of S. James Peter Mark Basil and Chrysostome are known Forgeries That they are ent rely genuine as they are now extant is affirmed by no one but that they are Forgeries quite throughout and especially the Liturgy ascribed to St. James is so far from being known that we may safely affirm that it is impossible to know it And the contrary opinion of so Learned men as See Falkners Vindication p. 149. Baronius Ddurantus Leo Allatius Sixtus Senensis Possevinus Pamelius and others among the Romanists Dr. Hammond Thorudike Falkner Casaubon Salmotius Durel and some other Protestants will bear me out in affirming it But behold the Modesty Charity and Humility of this Minister 'T was the Ignorance Carnality Sloth and Laziness of the Clergy together with their Pride which first brought in and imposed service-Service-Books on the Churches When the Church began to be an Harlot when Bishops were not Silver Trumpets but tinkling Cymbals c. when in Councils as of Ephesus and Chalcedon they profest they did literas ignorare and could not write their own Names to confirm their Canons then came in our Liturgies Thus far the Son of Thunder but I take heart again for find it is brutum fulmen and our Prayer-Books are in no danger from it The Falshood and weakness of this Raillery is Schol. Hist part 2d p. 276. sufficiently exposed already and it is impossible such stuff should impose upon any but the greatest Bigots of Fanaticism Ignorance Carnality Pride and Laziness brought in Liturgies he might as well have said that Burglary or Vsury did introduce them if Pride and Ignorance brought in Liturgies why are they not read in Conventicles for In his Cure of Divisions Mr. Baxter hath complained to all the World that the People who frequent them for their Ignorance Injudiciousness Pride and Self-conceitedness are their Grief and their Shaine and certainly we may believe him But if Pride and Ignorance brought in Litugies we remember well then Entbusiasm Sacriledge and Rebellion did eject them We have Preface to Dr. Still Vnreasonableness of Separation had convincing Proofs that the Jesuits first brought extempore Prayers into England those Missionaries of Antichristian were the first Teachers of them and when Presbyterian Ministers were Trumpets to Rebellion when their Sermons and their Arms brought the best of Kings to the Scaffold when the Church was rent in pieces with damnable Doctrines when Jeroroham's Priests profaned the Pulpits and the Altars when the Stalls and the Shambles were the chief Schools of the Prophets when all Religion was vanished into Cant and Blasphemy and Nonsense were entitled to the Holy Spirit then were Liturgies first abolished and extempore Prayers first universally practised in any Christian Nation in the World But Liturgies he says were brought in when the Church began to be an Harlot Smectymnius * Answer to Remonst p. 7. derived their Pedigree from Three Canons of the Laodicean Carthaginian and Milevitan Councils and thus they are allowed to be in use about 1300 years since and has the Church been a Whore for so many Ages has she forsaken her Spouse so long has she renounced Christ Jesus for 13 Centuries together Yes and much longer too when we dispute about Episcopacy for when we come to that Controversie the Mystery of iniquity was working even in the times of the Apostles and the Church did then begin to be an Harlot also so little do some men care how they wound our common Christianity and condemn the whole Catholick Church of Christ so they may but vent their Malice against Liturgies and Bishops But because he cannot deny that Liturgies were introduced in the 4th and 5th Centuries he particularly Rallies upon the Ignorance of the Bishops of those Ages And were those ever reputed ignorant Ages when was the Church better enlightned with Learning than when Chrysostome Basil Nyssene Nahianhen Epiphanius the two Cyrills Lactantius Ambrose Jerome Augustine Isidore Pelus Theodoret Vincentius Gennadius and many others were the Luminaries of it But among these Gnosticks even the Mechanicks and the Women have been thought more able Divines than the Fathers and indeed if Ability is to be measured by the Gift of Prayer as they call it they may vye Learning even with their own Teachers for their most ignorant Zealots do often pray with as much fluency of words with as much pretence to the Spirit and which is the main Gift with as much Confidence as the ablest Ministers among them But the Bishops of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their Names and Mr. Clarkson indeed produces the Subscriptions of Three or four to prove it And to * Schol. Hist pt 2. p. 300. this it is replied That those Subscriptions are of no credit as being suspected of Forgery but suppose there were four Bishops among 830 in those Councils who were so illiterate is it not a very impudent Calumny to say indefinitely as he does That the Bishops of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their Names to confirm their Canons might it not as well be said that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster were Independants because there were Five of that Sect among them or that the Nonconformists Ministers of this Age have generally died as Traitors because Two or three were executed for being in Monmouths Rebellion His last Reason concerns the imposing of Liturgies and here he denies not the Lawfulness of them but after he has begged the belief of his Followers That they were not used in the Primitive times for many Hundred of years he pretends to prove the unlawfulness of imposing them Now one would think it a very plain Case that things lawful in themselves may be lawfully enjoyned by lawful Authority but this Minister is of another opinion and the only Reason he gives for the unlawfulness of prescribing Forms is this
That it is a restraint upon the Gifts of such Ministers as have Ability to compose better Prayers themselves and this he illustrates by the trite instances of Trespass Offering and of a Law obliging those who are not Lame and Impotent to make use of Crutches But 1. All this is impertinent to the Dispute before us for the Ministers in our Church are not restrained from the Exercise of their own Abilities in publick Prayers they may use their own conceived Prayers in the Pulpit and the Fifty fifth Canon as explained by the general Practise is an allowance of it and therefore if the Exercise of Abilities be not excluded in our Church the pretence of restraint can never justifie a Separation from it Secondly The Objection is grounded on these false Suppositions that God is better served by conceived Prayers than by a publick Liturgy that the Church is less difyed by it that it is unlawful to lay a restraint upon private Gifts and that it is lawful to separate for better Edification and unless all these Propositions here precariously supposed to be true and I think he will find it impossible to prove them then his whole reasoning and the Crutches he has brought to prop it and the Pidgeons Lambs and Bullocks which attend it are plainly unserviceable to him His Pidgeons and Crutches are designed to intimate that a Form of Prayer is a cheap impotent unedifying way of Worship in Comparison of their extempore Effusions but this he should have proved for he knows we assert the contrary we think that Prayers are not more acceptable because they are inconsiderate or of private Composure that the Framers of our Liturgy were as well gifted as Dissenters that the Church may be better edifyed by the Spirit of the Church than by the Spirit of a Member and that those Prayers are fittest for the People which they are before acquainted with and wherein they are secured from Presumption and Impertinence Blasphemy and Nonsense He should have proved likewise that the Exercise of private Gifts cannot lawfully be restrained by publick Authority we know that even the miraculous Gifts of the Spirit were subject to restraint and we have an express Rule That the Spirit of the Prophets must be subject to the Prophets There is no Law no Reason nor Revelation against such a restraint on the contrary both Reason and Religion do require that the use of private Abilities be regulated by publick Order and that the vain Ostentation of them be restrained * Epist 87. ad Prot. Aug. Calvin has expresly declared for the necessity of prescribing Forms To remedy the simplicity and unskilfulness of some to testifie the Consent of all the Churches in the same Prayers and to prevent the desultory Lightness of those who affect Novelty In short all the Foreign reformed Churches do either use or approve of prescribed Liturgies the old Nonconformists always allowed them and even the Presbyterian Directory prescribed every thing but Words and if private Spirits may be restrained to Sense and Matter why not to Form and Language also Lastly Admitting that such restraint is unlawful and that conceived Prayers are more edifying than Forms he should then have proved that it is lawful to separate for better Edification The antient Puritans thought otherwise and so did the Presbyterian Assembly in their Controversie with the Independents See Vnreasonableness of Separation pt 1. and so both Reason Experience and Revelation do convince us that the restraint of private Gifts will not justifie the dividing of Christ that the silenceing an able Minister is not so mischievous as Schism that the Pretences of better Edification is the fruitful Parent of endless Separations and that the Church which is in the House of the living God cannot be built or edified by being torn in pieces and destroyed Thus have I considered at large his Discourse about Liturgies it is the principal Fort and Bulwark of his Cause and the slight defences which remain will be easily demolished 4. The Point that follows next is the abjuring of the solemn League and Covenant as in it self an unlawful Oath and imposed on the Subjects of the Realm against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom And is it not extreamly modest in these Men to Quarrel at the State for requiring them to renounce an Impious and Rebellious Covenant was it reasonable to admit such men into the Offices of the Church as were sworn and obstinately resolved to extirpate the whole Government of it But let us consider the Reasons which he urges against the abjurating that Covenant 1. There are many learned Preachers that never redd a Law Rook they know nothing of Manna Charta Bracton Littleton Cook Common Law or Statute Law is it reasonable then to require them to declare the Covenant is contrary to known Laws and Liberties which they are utterly unacquainted with Indeed there is no necessity that a good Preacher should be an able Lawyer and much less is it necessary to read over a Lawyers Library to be convinced that the Covenant was illegal can none but profound Lawyers know that Felony and Burglary are against our Laws and Liberties Does not every sensible man know that the impofit on of an Oath without Law to warrant it is contrary to it and that nothing is Law which has not the concurrence of King Lords and Commons to enact it have these Ministers never heard of the * 3 Car. 1. c. 1. S. 2. Petition of Right which declares all others without Law to be against our Laws and Liberties Or can they tell us by what Law the Covenant was established was it not imposed without the Concurrence of the King and against his express Command had they never heard of the Oaths and Laws about the Kings Supremacy and is not the * Vid. indicium Acad Oxoniensis de solrum Freder p. 8. 14. Cotenant plainly Contradictory to it and Lastly do they not know that this Abjuration is required by an Act of Parliament and what need then of consulting Law Books about a Covenant for which there is no President in them when the Legislative Power it self has declared the unlawfulness of it it is manifest this Ignorance is affected time was when they were so well acquainted with Laws and Liberties that they preached the People into a Rebellion for them in the Covenant it self they swore expresly * Artic. 3. to preserve the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom if then they knew those Liberties can they now be unacquainted with them or is it not as lawful to abjure as to swear without knowledge Article 1. They swore to preserve the Religion of the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government and was there one in a Thousand of the Covenanters that had a competent knowledge of these particulars How could it be imagined that he common People should know them and yet they never scrupled to exhort