generous ambition and Mr. Hobs saith somewhere excellently well nisi qui laudem amant pauci faciunt laudabilia so we may say with equal truth nisi qui ambiunt honores pauci faciunt quae sunt honoribus digna The Scripture it self bids us look to the recompence of reward and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling and it is certain that no man will or can doe any thing with a steady purpose of mind wherein he does not propose some interest to himself The prospect of such advantages in future makes a man obedient as well as industrious for the present and by setting an example of submission to his superiours and of diligence in his station and emploiment he is in both respects an instrument of great honour and great service to the Church he is in the ready way to make a wise and excellent person and will be the more readily obeyed when he comes to govern for having shewed an example of obedience before But if there were not such honours and advantages to be met with in the Clergy then there would certainly these two notoririous inconveniences follow first that the governours of the church would lose very much of their authority and power which they cannot do without prejudice to the government it self and secondly that the want of due encouragement would produce in the inferiour Clergy a scorbutick idleness and inactivity a want of due concern either for the peace of the Church or for the honour of it it would subject them to the humours of the people from whose kindness they might in this case expect as great or greater secular advantages than they could propose to themselves in any other course so that instead of being the instruments of obedience they would by this means become the speaking trumpets of faction and so it was seen in the late disorderly times when the Episcopacy was demolisht and the dignitary lands were all of them confiscate men preach'd up rebellion for lecture contributions and I doubt not but many of them acted much against their consciences for no other reason but to please the rabble It is an old saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not to be denied but there are some instances of very gallant men to be found in the reformed churches abroad and that too where they have not the benefit of episcopal government but I dare appeal to the dissenters themselves if they will speak their consciences whether ever there was so plentifull an harvest of wise and excellently learned men as are to be found at this day among the Clergy of the church of England and whether among themselves there be any such thing as learning to be met with whether both city and country are not now better furnished than in the late times with excellent preachers and men that can speak sense which is more than they can doe or whether the Universities are not better stored with men of great attainments on the one hand and great hopes on the other than in the days when humane learning and that abominable idol carnal reason were for the most part banish'd with the King and the Bishops the reason of which cannot possibly be referred to any other cause but onely the more ingenuous Principles that are now abroad and the greater encouragements men have now before them to study and take pains and deserve well of the world This is certain that the wisedom of Princes hath always been so sensible of the usefulness of ecclesiasticks to the service of the publick for the security honour and safety of their governments for the composing and calming the minds of their people into a peaceable and obedient temper that they have thought no honours and advantages too great to bestow upon them as a reward of their merit and to make their authority still greater in the eyes of the people and it was very wisely provided by our ancestours in such a government as this is where the people have so great a share in the making of those laws by which they are afterwards to be obliged that the Bishops should have a place allotted them in Parliament as well as the nobility or the commons have and that for their greater honour and to give them a right of suffrage in the house of Lords they should have Baronies annext to their respective sees For where the people have so great an interest in the enacting of their own laws there if the Clergy be totally excluded if there be none admitted into the assembly to look after the interest of the ecclesiastical state it will most certainly and unavoidably come to pass that by the envy or the ill designs of men the Clergy will be deprest and trampled on at some time or other which it can never be without detriment to the state upon supposition that they are at all advantagious or serviceable to it Nay if it be granted that they are of any use it must be granted likewise that they are the most usefull persons that do or can belong to a society and therefore ought to be the most highly honoured and esteemed for what greater blessing can there be than peace or what greater plague or calamity can befall a nation than to be embroiled in sedition enflamed with strife raging with opposite and eager passions what better instruments can there be in any state or kingdom than they whose business and whose study it is to exhort to peace and charity and obedience to submission to the government and love to one another Certainly if the Lawyers get so much and are so highly caressed and rewarded sometimes for ending controversies and sometimes for making them endless sometimes for setting men together by the ears and at others for parting the fray to the disadvantage of the true pretender the Divines are much more worthy to be honoured and rewarded whose business it is to prevent all strife and contention and who have perhaps determined as many controversies in a cheap and amicable way at home as ever the other decided at the bar to the ruine sometimes of both the parties concerned and always to the signal detriment and disadvantage of one I do not speak this to disparage or undervalue the learned Gentlemen of the long robe whose profession I acknowledge in every state to be not onely usefull but necessary to its peace and welfare so far as it is not abused by ill men or by tedious delays and by traversing of courts and actions to the infinite vexation and oppression of the subject But I say the prevention of all strife is a much more noble excellent and usefull thing than the deciding of controversies after they are actually begun as it is better to prevent an ague by a wholesome diet or by a regular course of life or by preventive medicaments before hand than to remove the fit or by degrees perhaps the disease it self by many repeated doses of the Jesuites powder which
Qui mihi which would have done me admirable service and that is Quis talia fando Myrmidonum Dolopum ve aut duri Miles Ulyssi Temperet à Lachrymis But these two being both of them prostitute citations which deny no authour that hath occasion for them I shall be content to say in homely downright English without the advantage of historical embellishments or Poetical flowers that it was impossible for me to be concerned as I am for the peace of the Church and the happiness of mankind without expressing an hearty indignation that we must be made miserable for the sake of trifles and by the bold artifices of conventicling varlets that are as ignorant as they are disloyal fellows that pretend to I know not what influences of the Spirit onely for that reason because they are unskilfull in Letters men that are so far from being qualifi'd to instruct the people that they understand not common sense themselves and are the most contemptible idiots under the cope of Heaven I appeal to Your Lordship and to all manking whether this be not sufficient to justifie a passion and whâ—ther it be not a man's duty to express himself after the example of our Saviour with the same severity and deserved sharpness with which he treated the Scribes and Pharisees and Hypocrites of his time nay it is still more our duty to imitate that example because there is greater cause and matter of indignation for the Pharisees though they were indeed Hypocrites and deceivers and as Josephus assures us a pragmatical Sect and very great medlers with affairs of State yet they were many of them admirable scholars and men of great understanding and though they may be justly upbraided with want of honesty yet with want of learning they could not they had that in abundance and that was one reason that made them despise the Gospel at that rate that they did as being preached by the Carpenter's Son and by a few poor Fishermen and illiterate people But we are fallen into the hands of Fools as well as Knaves men that have neither honesty nor sense nor learning that preach as with the same lowdness that the Thunder does or the Cataracts of Nile which is musick onely for Crocodiles and monsters so with no better eloquence or more intelligible meaning and they encourage and animate one another like Mariners weighing anchor they set their shoulders to the government and muster all the strength and all the noise they can make and resolve with themselves to unhinge the Kingdom and overturn the world by importunity and clamour Wherefore let any expression be never so severe yet I desire no allowance to be made me onely let men consider whether what I say be true or no for upon supposition that I speak no more than the truth the things are of that consequence that wonderfull and yet that manifest and plain importance that there can be no severity too much no zeal too fierce nor any Steliteutick or Satry too invective David in his time said it of himself that That zeal of God's house had eaten him up but we have lived to see the Phrase inverted and seem to have eaten up the zeal of God's house and if there be any thing that can excuse those bitter imprecations which David showrs in such plenty upon his enemies which cannot well be done by any thing but by saying that they were enemies to God and to Religion as well as to him then certainly we shall still be more excusable or rather it will be highly commendable and praise-worthy in us if without the curses of David we onely give a due character of the seducers of our times the disturbers of our peace and the most dangerous enemies of manking that the people may avoid them and leave them as they do very well deserve to be a curse and calamity to themselves Let any man judge if a concern for any thing be in any case excusable whether it be fit to talk of matters of this nature and importance with the same indifference as if he were demonstrating a dry proposition in Euclid or making out a crabbed probleme in Apollonius Pergeus being very well satisfied nay and perhaps overjoyed as Archimedes was when he leap'd out of the Bath and Pythagoras when he offered an Hecatomb for a discovery that he hath found the truth himself and so sleeps quietly with an opinion of his skill and with the satisfaction of a sober mathematical assurance but is not at all concerned whether any body else either know or believe as he does and whether they do or no yet the discovery may be such however difficult and intricate in it self that it may be of little or no consequence to humane life Nay I am so far from repenting the severity of any expression I have used that though it should happen to me as it did to him in Horace Populus me sibilat the Mobile are displeased and angry at me yet notwithstanding I would go on as he did at mihi plaudo Ipse domi and I shall be glad when it seems good to fate to walk along with him to the end of the verse tacita nummos contemplor in Arca. But if any of that party shall pretend to take up the Quarter-staff against me though he will doe well to follow my example and take the advice of Horace along with him Sumite materiam vestris qui scribitis aequam Viribus versate diu quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri yet if he behave himself with civility towards me I will either not answer him at all or I will doe it with respect according as his performance is but if he have a mind to shew his angry parts I will set him such a copy of Satyr as neither he nor any of his party shall be able to follow and I will let him see that I can doe what Isaac Vossius once threatned in a case of small moment in comparison of this Vtimur nunc leni flabello usuri etiam flagro si porrò molesti esse pergant I will shew him that I have Scorpions as well as Whips and that without translating Ovid against Ibis I shall find matter enough at home to make him asham'd of himself and his performance and without putting my self to the drudgery of imprecation a thing very inconsistent with the goodness of my nature which enclines me very strongly to wish well to all mankind all I shall doe is to turn him upon himself if he dare own his name otherwise I have neither the patience to beat the air to no purpose nor the courage and hardiness to fight with Goblins that vanish out of sight and assault a man behind and before and on all sides at once without any possibility of being hit themselves but let him own himself as an authour ought to do and let him write so as to deserve an answer and then let us have a clear stage and fair
to pay a reverence to their superiours not so much for their own sakes as for the sake of some outward appearance formality and shew for hospitality which they keep and for the train and equipage that attends them and therefore this is another fault of the Presbyterian government with hath not yet been mentioned that it can never be so readily obeyed by the people because it wants those outward appearances of magnificence and splendour which are the natural causes of reverence and esteem among men and which it is much more easie for them to obey than to submit themselves to the disciplinarian rigour of such as are upon the level with themselves for this is deeply rooted in the very nature of government that men will always pay a reverence to the port and grandure of those that are placed over them but if you devest them of their trappings and attendance they lose their authority together with them and will as infallibly be despised as ever they were esteemed or reverenced before It is true indeed that power without wisedom will lose it self and will unavoidably produce either hatred or contempt by tyranny on the one hand or by too much easiness and softness on the other but it is every whit as true that though wisedom be that for which all mankind have a natural inward reverence and veneration yet whether it be from emulation or ambition or whatever be the cause but so it is in experiment which is the surest way to distinguish truth and falshood in these matters that the person of a wise man is usually disregarded where the splendour and appearance of a great one is wanting at least thus much must be acknowledged on all hands to be true that a wise and good man with the advantages of honour and preferment suitable to his worth is capable of doing more good in the world and of influencing mankind more powerfully by his authority and example than he that wants those advantages to recommend him Wherefore the great stress of the question lies here is it at all necessary that there should be any set apart to the office of the ministery that is to say to be the preachers and examples of obedience and good life If it be not if we are so governable and so good of our selves that we stand in need of no monitour to put us in mind of our duty I see no need at all we have of any Clergy to instruct us for at this rate every man would be a Priest to himself his life would be the best of Sermons to men and the most powerfull and effectual prayer to God mutual examples would preach to one another they would encourage and approve themselves they would excite and animate each other and the earth would be as happy as heaven it self the habitation of the blessed and the seat of glorified and immortal spirits But since the case is clear otherwise since it appears by every days experience that the world is overrun by luxury and vice by evil habits and by bad examples by strife and faction by animosities contentions quarrels feuds and emulations since these are the great plagues of humane life and since the removal of these or at least the abating as much as is possible of their malignity and destructive influence is the greatest blessing and benefit that can befall us and yet a task so difficult to be performed that all the zeal and diligence of the best and the wisest men is little enough to bring so happy and so desirable an event to pass it follows unavoidably from the consideration of these things First that it is naturally necessary that in every nation there should be a regular and standing Priesthood whose business and employment it should be to perswade to charity good-will and friendship to preach obedience repentance and amendment and to exhort to a constant and assiduous practice of all whether personal or political vertues which are the onely expedients of publick and of private peace And Secondly that for the better enforcing the doctrine which they preach they should have an honourable subsistence dealt among them lest otherwise their persons and their functions fall into contempt which they cannot doe without detriment to the publick if it be true what cannot without abundance of waywardness and wilfulness be denied that such an order of men is at all usefull or serviceable to it And because all greatness is in it self not an absolute but a comparative thing it is manifest that the grandeur of the Clergy must be taken in proportion from the other parts of the government that so all the parts of the civil and ecclesiastical state may have a symmetry with one another for instance there ought to be a Bishop of a diocese as well as a Lord Lieutenant of a County a metropolitan of more dioceses taken together as well as a Praetor Proconsul or Bassa of a Province and a patriarchal as well as an imperial seat having several such Provinces under its jurisdiction The reason of which is founded in the nature of society and in the unquestionable maxims of the truest policy that there ought always to be a proportion and harmony inviolably preserved betwixt the civil constitution and the ecclesiastical and I appeal to any man of common understanding whether besides the envy and opposition that such an establishment would meet with it would not be ridiculous and monstrous in the body politick for any Clergy-man to challenge or arrogate to himself the state revenue and equipage of a Patriarch in an Hans Town of Germany or in one of the ancient commonwealths of Italy or Greece or whether it would not as infallibly be an equal deviation from the rules of government if in a large Empire converted to Christianity such as the Roman was of old after the time of Constantine the great no Clergy-man should be higher than a Parish Priest I have very frequently in my mind despised that Phanatick argument against Popery God keep us from such defenders of the Protestant Religion that Paul worked with his own hands and Peter was a poor fisherman great in nothing but his faith and sufferings and in the supernatural gifts that were bestowed upon him whereas his pretended successour in the Apostolical chair as he is at this day a very great temporal Prince rowling in wealth and armed with power and furnished with all the Regalia belonging to the Triple Crown so he assumes at least a spiritual authority over all the Princes and potentates of the Christian world For though I do not believe the Pope or any Bishop to have such a power over Princes as that they may depose them or absolve their subjects from their allegiance or that they can commission any to hurt or annoy their sacred persons and much more to destroy or kill the Lord 's annointed to whom our Saviour and the Apostles themselves have given us so powerfull examples and so frequently inculcated
Siculis Gerris Germanis de foliis Farfari aut Noevill Butubatis de umbrâ Asini aut de lanà Caprinâ they were not matters of meer Ceremony and Show matters of External Discipline and Form that exercised the tenderness and infirmity of those times Those Babes in Christ that were but newly initiated into the Christian Faith and had as yet tasted only the sincere milk of the Word without adventuring upon stronger meats were yet better fed and better taught than to quarrel about Indifferent Matters or to Controul their Governours in things of Publique-Decency and Order But the instances of their Scrupulosity were founded in such things as they looked upon to be in themselves Offences of the highest nature against the express Commands of God against the honour of his Name against the entire and incommunicable respect which is due from all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth to his Adorable Majesty and Greatness and against the indispensable duties of natural Reason and Religion in which though they were never so much mistaken yet these were Scruples not of small Concernment but of the highest Consequence and Importance and St. Paul did therefore comply with the Infirmity and with the mistakes of those Good Men not barely to gratify a squeemish Fancy which is out of love with things for no reaâ—on and without any end but lest by opposing Prejudices so deeply rooted in matters of so extraordinary a nature as these were they might be tempted to an Apostacy from the Christian Faith which did impose burthens upon them which their Consciences not â—eing yet sufficiently informed of the true extent of that liberty which Christ had purchas'd for them could not possibly bear for this reason it was Saint Paul's rule to become all things to all men that he might save the more and he despensed with them in some cases out of meer necessity that his Brother for whom Christ dyed might not be destroyed by Relapsing to Judaism on the one hand or Idolatry on the other As our Learned Mr. Thorndike and out of him the Accurate and Industrious Doctor Falkner have observed And this latter case of Idolatry was therefore the more tenderly to be regarded because the Authour to the Hebrews speaking of this very business tells us c. 6. v. 4 5 6. It is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the World to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance seeing they Crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And St. John in his first Epistle c. 5. v. 16. tells us there is a sin unto death I do not say that he that is our Brother shall pray for it that is there is great danger that his Prayers will never be heard in behalf of such a person and what that Sin is he afterwards explains v. 21. Little Children keep your selves from Idols And this is likewise very suitable to the practice of the Church in the Primitive times who upon any such Relapse to Idolatry were not used to receive the Apostate though giving all imaginable demonstrations of Repentance into the bosom of that Church which he had forsaken by Sacramental Absolution sometimes at the very instant of Death and sometimes not till then as is manifest from the case of Serapio and others However since Peace is the thing above all others the most to be prized and valued and with the greatest passion and earnestness to be desired since no kind of discipline or external Form is any further necessary or so much as lawful than it shall be found to Contribute to this blessed end since Rites and Ceremonies establisht in the Church are in themselves of a changeable nature and since our Church her self hath openly and expresly declar'd that she is no longer desirous to retain all or any of them than they shall be found expedient for Edification I should not be against closing with any Proposition let it be almost what it will by which a lasting Peace and Settlement might be obtained And because I think there are but three ways to be thought of in order to this end The first of which is a Toleration of those that differ from us in their several differences and distinctions The second an Alteration of those Customs and Usages which are excepted against for others in their stead And the third an Abatement or Abolition of those Ceremonies which are scrupled without any Reparation by the Substitution of others in their room Therefore I shall speak very briesly to each of these particulars And first A Toleration as it is commonly understood is a Liberty from the Government for every man to say and do as he pleases in Religious matters for Conscience sake or upon account of a tender Conscience which cannot submit it self to the publique Rule and such a Toleration as this is I affirm to be directly and positively unlawfull because it cuts the sinews of Government in pieces and lets the Rains loose to all manner of misrule and disorder For the truth of which I need only appeal to the Experience of former times when by such an unbounded Toleration the Kingdome was put into such a floating and uncertain Posture that we had almost as many alterations in Government as there were Sects and Parties that were to obey The Presbyterians when time was having shaken off the Episcopal Yoak as they were pleased if not to think yet at least to pretend it to be were as much for Uniformity as other men and urged the very same Arguments with great Judgment and Reason against the Independency which may now with irresistable Force be retorted upon themselves as the Most Reverend and Incomparably Learned the Excellent Dean of Saint Pauls a singular Ornament and strong Support of the English Church and State against their Enemies of both kinds hath very Wisely and like himself Observed Nay to what excess of Riot a Toleration in its utmost Latitude will proceed the extravagancies either in Opinion or Practice or both of the Antinomians the Seekers the Quakers the Ranters the Sweet-Singers and the Family of Love are a sufficient witness most of whose Opinions as they proceed only from Ignorance or Melancholy or a worse cause a Life ill spent or a desire to spend it amiss for the future so the Debaucheries and the Obscenities of some of these Sects which I have named under a pretence of I know not what Liberty are so great and so horrid that I should not have believed it if I had received it from any other information than that of some who pretended with abundance of asseveration and in a Company not easily to be imposed upon to speak their own certain knowledge and who I have great reason to believe would not goe about to deceive either
of dis-uniting Protestants and yet at the same time uncharitably representing the best Defenders of the Reformation under the odious and invidious Characters of Papists or Popishly affected by questioning the Jurisdiction of the Bishops in temporal causes that by that means they may weaken their Ecclesiastical Power by striking at the King through the sides of his loyal and well-affected Clergy and by doing all this and a great deal more out of a dissembled Zeal for Unity and Peace and out of a passionate Concern for the Honour and Safety of the King and Church they doe abundantly more mischief than either the Dissenters themselves or they who are the most unmanageable and indiscreet in the expressions of a bitter and unchristian Animosity against them because these as being prejudiced and profess'd Parties will not be heard so equally on both sides Secondly a second Cause though indeed in the order of causality it may well enough deserve the first place of the Continuance of such an unnatural Separation among us notwithstanding there is so little or rather nothing at all to be said in justification of so prejudicial and so unwarrantable a Practice is the Necessity or Revenge of those who at the happy revolution of his Majesty's return like the rising of the Sun with healing in his wings to heal the Sores of three divided Kingdoms being ejected in great numbers out of those Livings and Benefices of which they were then possessed being unable to digg unless it were in the Vineyard and being ashamed to begg being desirous to reak their Revenge upon the Government which had ejected them onely for that reason because it could not trust them and because they would not obey it being tainted with the Leaven of the good old Cause being soundly seasoned with Democratical and Demagogical Principles of which it is very hard for a thorough Common-wealth's man especially when he is no Philosopher to rid himself being in some small hopes as drowning men are when they catch at a Reed of reaping a new Harvest out of the Church lands and out of the Spoils of the Crown being encouraged and abetted by men of like Principles and Practices and Circumstances with themselves by good old Officers that had been in Commission by Proprietours that had lost those Tenements and Hereditaments that never were their own by inconsiderate Women that are naturally fond of Saintship and Persecution by Men that were Bigots to a Party or Dependents upon an Interest that wanted a Wife or would oblige a Chapman or insinuate themselves into a Last Will and Testament by the Womens caressing their Husbands and the Husbands persuading their Wives by causes that cannot be justifi'd and causes that must not be named the black Fraternity of the short robe were at length so far emboldened as notwithstanding the Severity of those wholesome Laws whose edge was rebated by the fatal Clemency of a too Gracious Prince towards men that ought not to be trusted and cannot be obliged to own and justifie a Separation which is now grown to that excessive height that the Contention is no longer about Liberty but Dominion they break the Laws openly without regard to Justice or to Shame and to propagate a Succession of Law-breakers like themselves they have ordained an Under-wood of Non-conforming Shrubs who will in time grow up to be Cedars of Rebellion and come by the Priesthood much by the same right and title that Oliver came by the Protectourship or Trincalo by his Dukedom So that it is now with the Dissenters as it was the Israelites in Jeroboam's time they have their separate Assemblies and their distinct Altars their Priests not of the Levitical or Aaronical Tribe much less of the more perfect Melchisedecian Order but of the dreggs and refuse of the People and Calves in abundance the Idols of the Faction as far as from Dan to Bethel But Thirdly a third Cause of that dangerous Non-conformity which prevails among us is a certain sort of Opiniatrity or Affectation or Newfangleness which in all Ages usually possesses the ordinary sort of People by which they are alwaies apt to quarrel and find fault with the present Establishment let it be never so wholesome and if it were not for this Cause the other two Causes which I have mentioned would want a subject upon which to work but certainly if men would seriously consider with themselves how dangerous all Innovations in the general are and how destructive oftentimes to the publick Peace how little most of them are like to get by Innovation and how much they may lose how small and inconsiderable how unreasonable and unwarrantable the present Differences are how necessary it is there should be some Establishment and how impossible that any should please all and that this is but to perpetuate quarrels by the nicety of some and the design of others from one generation to another without any measure moderation or end to the inexpressible and unconceivable disturbance of the World they would not then think it worth their while to lose the Quiet of their own minds their Charity for others and the good opinion of others for them to crumble into Sects and Parties to embroil us in infinite and inextricable Difficulties at home and to expose us to the unavoidable Dangers of a foreign yoak and a foreign Religion from abroad onely to gratifie the Designs of proud or discontented or necessitous men to feed Contempt and Ignorance themselves and to cloath Want of loyalty learning good nature and good manners It is true indeed that the Wisdome of this World is Foolishness with God and that the Wisdome of God is Foolishness with this World and that they are opposite the one to the other but then by the Wisdome of this World is meant that Carnal Mind that hath a greater consideration for a Temporal Interest than for the Interest of Truth and Vertue for the Commands of God or the precepts of the Gospel but that men that have little or no Learning of their own and yet are unassisted by those extraordinary helps of Utterance and Supernatural Illumination with which the Apostolical times were furnished men that are so far from understanding what Reason is that they decry it men that are steered wholly by considerations of Interest by impulses of Passion by an habit of Prejudice and a principle of Revenge that these of all others should be thought the fittest to Instruct the People and to have the care and conduct of such precious things as are the Souls of men committed to their Charge that these should be thought worthy to be the instruments of our Confusion who have neither the wit nor the honesty to make us Happy who design us no Good and can do us none if they did design it is a thing which I am very confident will find no manner of countenance from Scripture and is utterly unable to plead the least shadow of a Grant or Commission from above An
that the Jewish Nation must have been canton'd and divided into as many Sects as there were different possibilities of interpretation arising from either of the two causes which have been above specified and assigned What confusion would this have introduced into the Ceremonial part of the Mosaique Law while every alteration of a letter or vowel would have made a new Ceremony and there would have been as great diversity of rites as there was possibility of variation and all pretending to the same divine authority to justifie and vouch themselves how would the people out of that innovating humour which is natural to the populace of all the world have divided and subdivided themselves into several Parties Conventicles and Factions and how would the Priests as fast as revenge or ambition or opiniatrity and affectation should prompt them have put themselves in the head of disagreeing Sects and would have fomented those differences among the Jews with the same real or pretended zeal and earnestness that the Non-conformists do now among us only with this advantage that the Jews might have done it when the interpretation of places for want of a standing punctation was left so much to every man's honesty and judgment with infinitely greater plausibility and pretence of warrant from above than our dissenting Incendiaries can do who are so shamefâ—lly driven out of all their posts unless it be their ignorance knavery and impudence which are citadels impregnable against all the power of argument in the world and can only be taken in by the faithfull and vigorous execution of severe and wholesome Laws how would they have lampoon'd and ridicul'd the Prophets and how would the several Parties by a several way of reading pointing or accentuation have discharged the several Prophecies at one another Lastly what strange uncertainty would this have brought upon the Law and Prophets how would it have confounded all those Prophecies that foretold and all those Rites and Sacrifices that typified and shadowed out the coming of the Messias And by consequence how would it have perplexed and entangled nay plainly evacuated and disanulled all the evidence which we have besides the unquestionable miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles for the Christian Religion how would it have baffled and defeated that argument for our Saviour's Person and Doctrine upon which he himself laid so mighty stress that he despaired any miracle how great soever should perswade them with whom the testimonies of Moses and the Prophets were of no force and signification For upon supposition of such infinite variation as the Promiscuous use of the Original Hebrew before the use of points would have introduced these testimonies could not possibly have been of any weight or value with any considerative or thinking man because the several readings by their mutual opposition would have destroyed and supplanted one another It is so far from being true that the ancient Jews were permitted the promiscuous use and reading of the Law that it seems rather to have been denied to most of the Priests and Levites themselves for we are to consider that in the distribution of the Levites to their several employments there were none admitted to the actual exercise of any sacred office whatsoever till they were arrived to the age of twenty years and that at that age they were only capable of the more servile or handy-work employments and as they arrived to greater maturity of years so they were admitted to offices and employments of a more honourable nature that there were some appointed for Porters others for Singers whose business was only to be instructed in the Songs of the Lord without any obligation that appears to any particular study of the whole Law And so for those that were employed in dressing or preparing the sacrifices or in sprinkling the blood it was not requisite they should learn this skill by a personal converse and acquaintance with the Law as well because all the Ceremonies belonging to the performance of such Ministeries as these neither were nor could be prescribed in the Law it self without swelling it into a much larger Volume than that in which it is now contained as hath been already observed to the shame of all Non-conforming scruples and to the undeniable justification of humane institutions in religious worship as because it is seen that things of this nature that is the ceremony and formality of Offices whether Civil or Divine may be and are actually handed down to men in a traditionary way as it is possible for a man and many a man actually does understand the Laws of England sufficiently well and yet in the practice of a particular Law-Court is not half so well skilled as an ordinary Attorney Besides all which it is still further to be considered that at the return from the Captivity of Babylon as hath been already observed Esdras did not only instruct the people in the knowledge of the Law but also the Priests and the Levites themselves Nehem. 8. 13. which would have been needless if all the Priests had been equally instructed in the knowledge of it or if some of them unless in those matters which belonged to their particular charges which as well as the Law it self were now by seventy years disuse forgotten had not been either altogether or very nigh as ignorant as the common people Wherefore it is most reasonable to conceive that as the line and family of Aaron were of all the Levitical race the highest in the Priestly dignity among the Jews insomuch that the Priests and the Levites are frequently distinguished from one another in Scripture though it is true that the Levites were Priests too though in a greater latitude as well as Aaron and his sons being all of them equally substituted instead of the first born and all of them dedicated though in a less degree to the service and ministery of the holy things I say it is highly reasonable from hence to conclude that the more particular knowledge and study of the Law was confined to the family of Aaron who were those Priests most properly and strictly so called whose lips in the language of Malachi were to preserve knowledge and to whose custody alone as being the most sacred depositum in the world the Original M S. of the Law it self or the most Authentique and unquestionable Copy of it was committed Deut. 17. 18. It is not certainly for nothing that the Letter or Commission of Xerxes to Esdras in Josephus is thus superscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Esdras the Priest and Reader or Interpreter of the Law of God and so he is called again afterwards in the body of the Epistle it self which is to me a plain intimation that the skill of reading and much more of interpreting the Law was in the time of Esdras a great rarity among the Priests themselves for that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Reader somewhat more is implied than what the Jews afterwards in their Synagogue
legally be eaten by any but the Priests and for the same reason the plucking a Sheep out of a pit the pulling of ears of Corn and healing of the blind on the Sabbath-day are allowed not to be a violation of the Sabbath though expresly contrary to the words of that Commandment wherein the observation of the Sabbath or a feriation from all manner of work or labour is enjoyned which how strictly it was observed not only by the superstition of the Jews but by the appointment of God himself in cases where there was no such absolute necessity we know by the punishment of him who was stoned by the whole congregation for gathering of sticks on the Sabbath day If therefore a divine Law may be dispensed with in cases of necessity at the prudence and discretion of men what can be more plain than that upon the same account a humane law may justly be enacted For this reason because a dispensation of any divine Law in cases not particularly excepted in the Law it self is every whit as much an humane institution as any positive humane Law and if there be the same reason of necessity in both cases that is for the welfare of a particular person and much more of a whole society they are both of them of equal obligation neither will it avail any thing in this case to distinguish betwixt humane institutions in sacred and in civil Matters for certainly the observation of the Sabbath belongs to the former of these and if humane laws may determine in what particular instances the Sabbath is violated and in what it is not that is in what manner the Sabbath shall be observed then it may as well determine nay and much more any other bare external circumstance of Worship whatsoever But above all things we can never too frequently reflect upon what hath been said as to the prohibition of reading the Law and Prophets to the Jews of old which being a thing drawing so great inconvenience after it and which could have no other good meaning than to preserve the peace and unity of the Jewish Church which I have shown plainly without this prohibition could never have been preserved this certainly extends in its consequence with much more conclusiveness to all those expedients of publique peace and safety whatever they be which have no such inconvenience attending which to be sure must be the case of all indifferent matters which would otherwise cease to be indifferent and by being manifestly hurtfull would lose their name But let not any man for all this think or suggest that in this I favour the cause of the Papists who deny the Populace the use of Bibles in the vulgar tongue for in the first place I only represent matter of fact without making any application in the second I say there is great disparity of reason betwixt the Papists and the Jews for had the Vowels been added to the Consonants in the Hebrew Bibles so as the sense might have been more plain and less subject either to errour or design which is the case of all our Bibles in the Modern Tongues there had not then been the same reason to keep them lock't up among the Priests that there was and it would have been as safe to permit every man the use of the Law and Prophets for his own private reading as it was after the seventy had compleated their Translation after which the knowledge of the Law was diffused in common among all the Jews Again If the Law had contained only matters of Morality and rules of Life which is the main business of the Gospel it could not have been so lyable to any dangerous corruption because it would be more difficult for any Doctrine to gain credit among men which contradicted the common sense and the common interest of Mankind but in a book of Rituals and Formalities of external worship as different readings must have produced different rites so those different rites would have produced so many different Parties and Factions among the Jews Fourthly It was absolutely necessary before the appearance of our Saviour in the world that the Scriptures of the Old Testament should be lay'd open to the knowledge both of Jew and Gentile to prepare them for the reception of the Messias that was to come and to render them the more inexcusable especially the former if at his appearance they did not give him that welcome and respectfull entertainment which was due to the greatness of his character and person Fifthly We are expresly commanded in several places of the N. T. to search the Scriptures we are told that all Scripture is written for our instruction and Timothy is commended by St. Paul for his knowledge of the Scripture from his youth upwards and since all these places in the New Testament where the Scripture or Scriptures are mentioned are to be understood of the Old this is sufficient to show how necessary it was sometime before our Saviour's appearance and at that time it self and ever since that the Scriptures of the Old Testament should be lay'd open and exposed to the view of Jew and Gentile because Moses and the Prophets did testifie of the Messias and it would have been impossible to understand how all the Prophecies and Types of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the person and by the sacrifice of the Messias without comparing the Life and History of that person and those types and prophecies together Sixthly Since we are commanded in the Scriptures of the New Testament to study and search into the Scriptures of the Old and that only for this reason because they bear their testimony to the Messias whose types and shadows are explained and unfolded in the Gospel this is sufficient to show the obligation we are under to search the Scriptures of the New Testament also because they can neither be sufficiently understood without one another and the reading of the Old is enjoyned us only for that reason that we may compare it with the New for our better understanding of both and especially the latter Seventhly Since the History of our Saviour's Birth and Life and Miracles and Sufferings are so faithfully and particularly set down in the Gospels as this was unquestionably intended for the benefit of all succeeding generations who would otherwise have lost that History or have received it corrupted and imbezled by foolish and ridiculous Fables so the greatest benefit which any man can receive from a Narrative of this nature is to be expected from the Original Narrative it self or from such a faithfull translation as keeps the closest to the literal and Grammatical sense of the Original besides that such Translations made by men of learning and integrity in all ages into the vulgar tongue for the use of the common people are a perpetual security against all the corruptions and impostures of superstitious ignorant or designing men Eighthly As there is matter of History in the books of the New Testament
swearing the person making Oath was used to lay his hand under the Thigh of him by whom he was adjured Gen. 24. 1 2 3 4. And Abraham was old and well stricken in years and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things and Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house that ruled over all that he had Put I pray thee thy hand under my thigh and I will make thee swear by the Lord the God of Heaven and the God of the Earth that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell but thou shalt go unto my countrey and to my kindred and take a wife unto my son Isaac And again Gen. 47. 29 30 31. And the time drew nigh that Israel must dye and he called his son Joseph and said unto him If now I have found grace in thy sight put I pray thee thy hand under my thigh and deal kindly and truly with me bury me not I pray thee in Aegypt but I will lye with my Fathers and thou shalt carry me out of Aegypt and bury me in their burying-place And he said I will doe as thou hast said and he said Swear unto me and he swore unto him and Israel bowed himself upon the beds head Sebastian Munster upon the first of these places says thus Jurabant veteres illi manu sub femore atque genitali parte positâ quod inde posteritas esset futura atque ideò veluti res sacra haberetur vel ut R. Salomo sentit quod illic esset signum Faederis nempe circumcisio vel quod hoc indicio dabatur intelligi potestas superioris promptus inferioris obsequendi animus ut Aben Ezra autumat dicitque hunc morem adhuc observari in terrâ Indiae That is ' The Ancients in the East were wont to swear by putting their hand under the thigh or genital part of the person by whom they were adjured because that was as it were the Fountain from whence posterity was to spring and was upon that account esteemed sacred or as R. Salomon thinks it was because in that part the Seal of the Covenant that is of Circumcision was made or it was to denote the Power of the superiour and the cheerfull obedience of those that were subject to him as Aben Ezra is of opinion who saith likewise that in India the same custom still obtains the words of Aben Ezra himself are produced by P. Fagius upon the same place who afterwards adds of his own Quidam ex nostris hoc modo jurandi adumbratum ferunt Christum qui ex Abrahamo oriturus erat ' There are some among the Christian Expositors who believe Christ who was to be descended of the loins of Abraham to have been typify'd and shadowed out by this rite Grotius Quasi dicerent si fallam ense tuo peream nam ad femur locus ensis Jud. 3. 16 21. Psal 45. 3. ' As much as to say if I swear falsly or if I break my Oath may I perish by your Sword for the Sword was used to be girt about the thigh But as for Munster's three reasons for so many there are the first of them is trifling because it is not a cause sacred and great enough to be the foundation of an Oath which is an act of divine Worship or of any solemn Ceremony belonging to it The second of R. Salomon's is like the reason of a Rabbin that is no reason at all for it was not under the pudenda Quod verecundiae ratio non patitur ut factum credamus but it was under the thigh it self properly so called that the hand was used to be layed as shall be proved by and by Neither is Aben Ezra's reason which is the third any less Rabbinical that is false ridiculous and absurd than the other for how the thigh was an Emblem of superiority or the putting the hand under it a symbol or token of subjection I do not understand and Aben Ezra does not so much as pretend to prove or so much as assert which yet if he had the affirmation of a Rabbin will signifie but little that ever these things were actually made use of in such a symbolical way As for P. Fagius his account in which also Clarius his Transcriber as how should it be otherwise agrees with him that it was a Typical adumbration of Christ who was to be descended of the loins of Abraham it is to be observed that this is at best but precarious and is likewise opposed by very strong Reasons into the bargain For first we find this rite again repeated c. 47. in the person of Jacob for which though the same account may again be given for Jacob also was a Progenitor of the Messias who was more immediately descended from him than from Abraham himself yet the repetition of this rite speaks it rather to be a custom of those times not founded upon any such particular reasons as belonged only to Abraham and his family but obtaining generally at those times and places besides that when Aben Ezra tells us Vezeh hamishphat hadajan bou beerets Hodo ' That this in his time was still a custom in the land of India It is very strange that a rite which in its first institution was so peculiar to the family of Abraham and had a particular respect to the coming of the Messias who was to arise from thence should yet obtain so generally all over the Eastern Countries for that I suppose is to be understood by Erets Hodo in the language of the Rabbin or if Aben Ezra's Authority shall be thought as little by any in matter of Fact as I have represented it in matter of Opinion where Speculation and Judgment are concerned talents very rarely to be met with in that sort of men to strengthen the Testimony of Aben Ezra let us call in that of Augerius a Busbeck a man of unquestionable credit and reputation who in the fourth of those excellent Epistles wherein he gives an account of his Embassy from the Emperour to the Grand Seigniour and of what he observed or heard or what Occurrences fell out during that time and speaking in this particularly of a Turkeish Hoggia of whom he there tells a pleasant story taking leave of a Bassa by whom he had been together with many others plentifully entertained he says Nam remitteret paulisper valedicturus hospiti necesse erat quod eorum ità ferat consuetudo ut manibus ad pectora vel ad femora applicatis suos optimates salutet ' Being about to take leave of his Host it was now high time for him to shut up his pouch which he had been busie in filling with good provender to carry home and the rather because he would have need to make other use of his hands this being their perpetual custom among the Turks that being to take leave of their Superiours as a token of respect they always lay their hand upon