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
them to take it tho they were morally certain they did not understand it And Lastly why is not this Objection now considered by the Virgin Daughter of Scotland as he Phrases it There they force the Clergy to swear that W. and M. are lawful King and Queen by Laws of that Kingdom and is this reasonable when they are utterly unacquainted with those Laws and many Learned Preachers have never read the Civil not Statute Law nor Craig nor Skine nor the Original Contract but it is always to be observed that the Presbyterians never do condemn what they do not practice 2. The Substance of his next Reason is this That the Covenant was taken by the People of Two or three Kingdoms and a man had need be a good Casuist that can declare understandingly that no one man is bound by that Oath which almost every man took Now I believe this Covenant was not taken by the Majority of these Kingdoms in England I am sure it was generally refused by the Clergy the Universities and the greatest part of the Nobility and Gentry But admit the Majority took it the force of his Reason depends upon this Proposition That an Oath taken by a vast munitude must needs be Obligatory and is it necessary to read all the Casnistical Books of Divinity to confute so manifest a Falshood in Popish Countries many Millions do take Monastick Vows and all the Clergy swear obedience to the Pope and may not an ordinary Casuist declare understandingly that none of them are bound by those Vows and Oaths which all of them have taken The Holy League in France was sworn by more than the Solemn League in England was it therefore Obligatory and is it not a sufficient Humiliation to which this Minister has called me to be bound to answer such Absurdities 3. He urges that by the Covenant all Persons were bound in their places to endeavour a Reformation of the Church according to the Scriptures and the Examples of the best reformed Churches and he asks is this an unlawful Oath I answer the Question is deceitful a man hinds himself by Oath to serve God and the Devil and he asks is it not lawful to serve God is this an unlawful Oath Thus the Covenanters did swear to endeavour Reformation Art 1. and to extirpate Episcopacy Art 2. But this Minister mentions Reformation only and then impertinently demands is this Oath unlawful I am ready to maintain against him that an Oath to serve the Devil is not more unlawful than an Oath to destroy Episcopacy and that upon this ground because it is of Apostolical Institution There are many other things unlawful in that Covenant as any one may be satisfied by the unanswerable Reasons of the University of Oxford against it and therefore if this Minister will prove it lawful let him justifie it throughout and not fly to such Methods as may serve to justifie the most execrable Oaths that can be by producing one single Passage that may seem justifiable in them But thus he proceeds If a man should swear that in his Place and Calling he would endeavour to cast every Idol out of the World and what is the consequence of this terrible If Why truly nothing at all but he filly adds that in Scotland they have cast off Prelacy and established Presbytery i. e. they have cast out the Idol and set up the true God among them but if this be his meaning that Episcopacy is Idolatry I account of him as one of the incurable Fanatical Roul that call every thing Idol or Antichrist that displeases them and I am not obliged to answer Bigotry and Frenzy The last Point he insists on is a Passage out of the Commination Office in the Liturgy wherein the Church declares her Desire that the Godly Discipline used in the Primitive Church may be again restored and says it is much to be wished for It is wonderful to consider what work he makes with this Passage but I am willing to believe he never read it in the Liturgy It was long since an old conceit of the Nonconformists * Vid. Hooker p. 331. that the Primitive Discipline which was so much wished for by the Compilers of our Liturgy was the Presbyterian Discipline and from them I presume he borrowed the Objection But in the Liturgy it self there is no Foundation for it as will appear from a view of the Passage it self in the Preface to the Commination Brethren in the Primitive Church there was a Godly Discipline that at the beginning of Lent such Persons as stood convicted of Notorious Sins were put to open Penance and punished in this World In stead whereof until the said Discipline may be restored again which is much to be wished for it is thought good c. and is Presbytery the Discipline here desired undoubtedly as much as Popery or Mahumetanism It not that Discipline expresly declared to be the Discipline of publick Penance which in the ancient Church was inflicted upon such as stood convicted of Notorious Sins at the beginning of Lent in order to their Absolution and Admission to the Holy Sacrament at Easter What can be more express and evident than that the Ancient Leut Discipline is there alone intended And have the Non conformists as he pretends ever written for preached for and suffered for the Restoration of this Discipline Have they ever wish'd or desired it Have they not always written and preach'd against it Do they not still exclaim at it as Popery and Superstition But this Minister pronounces considently that this Expression stands in the Liturgy as well for the Justification of the Nonconformists as for a Testimony against the Prelates Thus the Godly Discipline is a Condemnation to them who have always desired it and Justification to them who have always opposed it and if Nonconformists must needs be justified by Blunder and Contradiction this Minister I confess is a fit Apologist for them But behold the Reflections he makes on this Passage First The Reformers and Compilers of this Book of Common Prayer had no full Satisfaction with what was then done What Were they not fully satisfied with the Liturgy The first Liturgy of Edward the 6th was applauded by the whole * 2 3 Ed. 6. c. 1. Parliament as composed by the Special Aid of the Holy Ghost and * Acts and Monuments Tom. 3. p. 171. Doctor Taylor the Martyr publickly declared that the whole Church-Service in King Edward's Second Liturgy was so fully perfected according to the Rules of our Christian Religion that no Christian Conscience could be offended with any thing therein contained The Papists were the only Persons in those Times that were dissatisfied with it and therefore in Queen Mary's days a Challenge was made by * Ibid. Tom. 3. p. 18. Cranmer that with P. Martyr and four or five more they would enter the Lists with any Papists living and defend the Common Prayer Book to be perfectly agreeable
to the Word of God and the same in effect which had been for 1500 Years in the Church of Christ and let any one now consider whether our first Reformers were not fully satisfied with the Liturgy But he adds they ingenuously confess they came short of the Primitive Discipline and that the Reformation should have been carried on higher if the Times would have given leave They confess they could not revive the ancient Discipline of Lent and they desired a higher Conformity to the Primitive Church not in relation to the Hierarchy and Liturgy but in the strictness of Mens Lives and the impartial severity of publick Penance Yet says he they had then their Government by Bishops Archbishops Chancellors Archdeacons c. as we have at this day They had so and were fully satisfied with it and there were no Protestants in that Age that separated from it Archdeacon Philpot Archbishop Cranmer and several Bishops our first Reformers and Martyrs approved that Government and lived and died in the Administration of it they did not permit it only as Moses did Divorces to the Jews because of the hardness of their Hearts as this Minister does falsely insinuate but they never intimated the least Suspition of its unlawfulness and they plainly * Preface to the Book of Ordin 〈◊〉 declared Episcopacy to be evidently founded upon Scripture and Apostolical Institution But these Reformers and Martyrs were ignorant of those things which are now known unto Women and Artificers poor Men they were under a dispensation of Darkness and the Gospel-Light of Separation was totally hidden from them Secondly he observes That it is more than 1â—00 Years since these good Men recorded their Desires of Restoring the said Discipline and is it enough say he that the Church carries her good Wishes with her through all Generations Enough certainly while the Restoring that Discipline is impossible Our first Reformers could not revive it because the universal and incorrigible Wickedness of that Age could not endure the Yoke of Primitive Penance and are scandalous Offenders now less numerous or loss incorrigible If the Reformers are excusable much more our present Governors by how much the present Age is more untractable and more obstinate against the Bands of Discipline Is it possible now to reduce Offenders to the Primitive Humiliations the Fastings and Watchings the Sackcloth and Ashes the Prostration at the Church Doors and the other Austerities of Ancient Penance Will any of the Dissenter's submit to this Discipline as a satisfaction for their Schism If such an impracticable Discipline were imposed these Ministers would presently cry out Popery encourage all Offenders to oppose it and set open the Doors of their Conventicles to receive them such an Imposition would be vain and pernicious it would scandalize the weak and alienate the obstinate and serve only to empty our Churches and crowd the Conventicles and though for that reason they may desire it yet the Church is not obliged to prescribe a Remedy that will make the Physician contemptible and the Patient incurable The restoring of that Salutary Discipline as the reviving of Primitive Piety may be always wish'd for but perhaps will never be attained but the licentious Wickedness of the present Times the general Contempt of all the Censure of the Church and the manifold Schisms with which it is rent in pieces do make it now impossible and if it were established it is not to be hoped that the obstinacy of the Dissenters would be subdued nor their Aversion to the Church be reconciled by it I intend not to follow this Minister through his tedious Digression about Reformation and much less to ramble with him as far as the Temple at Jerusalem to which forsaking his Text and his Purpose he undertakes a Pilgrimage and returns with these wise Observations * P. 22 23. That the Temple was built upon Ornan 's Barn that this Ornan was of Princely descent because he had a Princely Mind and that Temple-Work is hard Work 't is Threshing Thus after a long Journey he brings back nothing but Apes and Peacocks as himself observes of some who ramble into the Indies These are the Saving Doctrines for which this Thresher is admitted by his Hearers and since a Barn is his Delight may he never Thresh in the Houses of GOD nor profane those Sanctuaries that are consecrated to his Worship But I return to Reformation and in Answer to his Harrangue about it I desire it may be remembred 1. That this Minister does not seek the same Reformation which was sought by Christ and his Apostles for Presbytery is not the Gospel neither is Extirpation of Bishops the Propagation of Christianity 2 Reformation is very good in it self and the Churchmen are for it much more than the Dissenters but they cannot be convinced that the removing Decency Order and an Apostolical Government is Reformation they know that this is the usual Vizard to disguise Sacrilege Avarice and Ambition and that the Sectaries endeavour not to reform the Church but to destroy it that they may seize on its Inheritance and withall they cannot but reflect upon the experience which we have had of Sectarian Reformation when Prelatical Government was reformed into no Government and a sober Liturgy into Enthusiasm and 39 Articles into infinite Heresies that could scarce be parallell'd in all the ancient Catalogues and in stead of the Power of Godliness there ensued such an Inundation of Wickedness as no Age could parallel This was observed by the * For instance by Edwards in his Gangraina Presbyterians themselves and an ingenious Foreigner who then resided at London made this Observation upon those Times * A Letter of a Noble Venetian to Ca. Barbarino Translated and Printed 1648. p. 19. one of the Fruits says he of this Blessed Parliament and of these two Sectaries Presbyterians and Independants is that they have made more Atheists than I think there are in all Europe besides and if we judge of the Tree by its Fruits and desire to see no more such Reformations have they reason to blame us for it 3. It should be considered that no pretence of Reformation can justifie Separation from a Church in which no sinful Terms of Communion are imposed There is no Church in the World which is free from all Corruptions in Doctrine Worship Discipline or Manners and if the want of some Reformation be a just reason for Renouncing Communion the Unity of the Church is nothing but a Notion and it will be lawful for every Man to separate from all the Churches in the World for it is only the Triumphant Church in Heaven which is perfectly without spot and blemish Defect of Discipline and purer Communion were the pretences of the Donatist and Novatian Schisms but they were condemn'd by the Catholick Church and * Aug. con Parmen Epis lib. 2 3. Tom. 7. S. Austin proves at large against the Donatists that Corruption in Discipline or Manners