such things would be But I say so such things would not be and so there is an end of our dispute and at this lock have we stood gazing at one another at least this hundred years here Cartwright begun the Objection and here he was immediately check't in his career by Whitgift who told him plainly He could not be ignorant that to the making of a Sacrament besides the external Element there is required a Commandment of God in his Word that it should be done and a Promise annexed unto it whereof the Sacrament is a seal Here they stopt and his Adversary never proceeded in his Argument but some that came after him resolved not to part so easily with so big an Exception though perhaps for no other reason than because Cartwright had started it and the truth is all his followers have done little more than lickt up the Vomit and Choler of that proud Schismatick and therefore they never pursued this new-fangled Cavil beyond his first Syllogism where himself was repuls't and rebuked and ever since this has been their post and they are resolved to keep it with unyielding and invincible confidence and their foreheads are so hardned that you may sooner beat out their brains than shame or convince them out of their Folly and though they have been so frequently and vehemently urged to a Proof and Prosecution of their Argument they could never be made to stir one foot backward or forward but here they stand like men enchanted and whatever Demands or Questions you propose to them they return you not one syllable of reply but Sacraments Sacraments And in this Posture do they continue to this day to haunt us with the stubbornness of unlaid Ghosts and 't is the only voice this Head of Modesty is able to utter upon this Subject He is resolved upon it that all significant Rites instituted in the Worship of God are real Sacraments and that so they shall be And that is stubborn and indisputable Proof and 't is not modest to bear up against so much Brass and Boldness and yet I am resolved for once to rub my forehead and not to be brow-beaten but to look him in the Face with the confidence of a Basilisk and upbraid him either to make good or to renounce his Argument and if he will neither yield nor proceed to scorn and affront and point him out of his intolerable Confidence Here then I fix my foot and dare him to his Teeth to prove that any thing can be capable of the Nature or Office of Sacraments that is not establish'd by divine Institution and upon Promise of divine Acceptance These are inseparable Conditions of all Sacramental Mysteries and whatsoever other Properties and Qualifications they may have beside these are always necessary and indispensable Ingredients of their Office so that without them nothing can lay claim to their Name or Dignity however any thing may happen to symbolize with them upon other Accounts and by other Circumstances For the Christian Sacraments are the inseparable Pledges and Symbols of the Christian Faith and are establish'd to that Intent by the Author of the Christian Institution and they are such outward Rites and Ceremonies whereby we openly own the Covenant and pass mutual Engagements to stand to its Terms and Conditions and therefore he alone that appointed the Religion is able to appoint by what outward Signs or Acts of stipulation we shall signifie and express our acknowledgment of and submission to his Institutions So that the meaning and intention of it is to assign some particular Act of Worship whereby we may express our Engagements and Resolutions of Obedience to the whole Religion and who then can declare and specifie what Rite he will accept as a full acknowledgment of our duty of Universal Obedience but he alone that requires it And therefore unless it pretend to his Institution there is no imaginable ground why it should be thought to pretend to the Office and Dignity of a Sacrament And certainly they have a very mean opinion of these sacred Mysteries that require nothing more to their Nature and Function but bare significancy and make every external sign capable of that holy and mysterious Office and what can more derogate from the Credit of those great Pledges of our Faith and Instruments of our Salvation As if they carried in them nothing of a more useful or spiritual Efficacy than what every common Rite and Ceremony may acquire or pretend to by Custom and humane Institution § 12. But 't is still more pleasant and more prodigious to see men that are so stiff and dogmatical in their Talk have so little regard to their own Pretences thus whereas they will admit no other Umpirage of our present Disputes about Divine Worship but what may be fetch'd from immediate Divine Authority yet in this grand Exception they take no notice of its Decrees and Determinations and though our Author will have every significant Circumstance of Devotion to partake of the Nature and Mystery of a Divine Sacrament yet he makes no attempt to prove it out of the Word of God No there is not a Text in the four Gospels that may be abused to that purpose And Paul for to allow him the Title of Saint is Popish and Idolatrous and our Author is as shy in all his Writings of bestowing it upon an Apostle as upon Cain or Iudas though he will vouchsafe the Title of Holy that is coincident with it to every Zealot of his own Brotherhood but by what name or title soever dignified or distinguish'd the Apostle Paul is utterly silent in the Case and now we have no higher Authority to vouch our Cause but the Schoolmen and Austin As for the former not to dispute the impertinency of the Quotation whenever they speak sense we are ready to subscribe to their Reason but their bare Authority is of no more force in the Church of England than the Decrees and Oracles of Mr. Calvin their Writings are no part of the Canon of Scripture or the four first General Councils and 't is well known what wise accounts they are forced to give of the Nature of Sacraments to justifie the unwarrantable Determinations of their own Church that had rashly and needlesly enough defined some things to be so that are in themselves infinitely uncapable of that sacred Name and Office And I know nothing for which any part of their coarse and frieze Discourses is more ridiculous in it self or more unanimously condemned by Protestant Writers of all Communions than their loose and groundless descriptions of the Nature and Office of Sacramental Pledges But this is one of their old ways of trifling when the pursuit of their Principles forces them upon an absurdity to father it upon the Schoolmen as if because these men sometimes talk absurdly that shall justifie their Impertinencies And as for his Citation out of St. Austin viz. Signa cum ad res divinas pertinent sunt
Meekness and Justice Mercy and Patience Contentedness and Pity Kindness Obedience and Humility And now if the Gospel be an Institution so pregnant with Vertue and Wisdom and Holiness how can any Man that is tender of his Saviours Reputation tamely suffer these brain-sick People to debauch the Divine Wisdom of his Religion with childish and trifling Follies And to represent the design of Christianity in so odde a guise as to suit it chiefly to the Conceptions of Children and inclinations of old Women and make it most agreeable to weak Reasons soft Spirits and little Understandings And how can any Man that is enamour'd of the Beauty of real Goodness think any Satyrs too rough for such bold Impostors as make it a Mask for Pharisaick Hypocrisie and stave off their Proselytes from the practice of real Righteousness by amusing their little Understandings with trifling and unprofitable Gayeties That employ a seeming Godliness to supplant all that is real and oppose all the great ends and designs of Religion under more gorgeous Pretences to advance them and are not onely content to exchange the Reality and Substance of true Goodness for its Varnish and Colours but have been so untoward as to contrive a seeming and hypocritical Sanctity that does not more counterfeit then oppose true Holiness in brief choaking all the most beautiful Graces of Christianity by over-running them with rank and noisom Impostures Now if these things are so who can charge the utmost severity of Expression with intemperance of Speech And that they are so if I have not sufficiently proved it already I shall have occasion to enforce its Evidence by some too clear and convictive Proofs in the sequel of this Discourse And therefore 't is but a vain thing to make loud and tragical Complaints of railing and intemperate Speeches unless they had first discover'd that there is not truth enough in my Accusations to warrant the sharpest and most vehement Expressions I have not thrown out hard words at all adventure nor confuted the Cause by giving bad Language as 't is some Mens custom to stick an Odious Name upon an Adversary and then he is baffled No I first endeavoured to convict them by Evidence of Reason and after that to reprove their Errour and if they resolved to continue obstinate to upbraid their peevishness with some sharpness of Expression And if Men will not distinguish between Railing and sharp Reproofs there is no remedy but the best and wisest Persons of all Ages must pass for the greatest Railers And so far am I from recanting my severity towards them that I am rather tempted to applaud it by the glorious Examples of the greatest Wits of our Nation King Iames Archbishop Whitgift Archbishop Bancroft Bishop Andrews Bishop Bilson Bishop Mountagne Bishop Bramhall Sir Walter Rawleigh Lord Bacon c. And what can you imagine more hateful to such wise Men as these then to see mean People borrow the Face of Religion to make them bold and impudent against Government In short I could name some Persons so vile and abominable that 't is not in the power of Slander to abuse them and there is a Faction of Saints in the World whose Villanies and Falshoods and Perjuries are so utterly destitute of excuse or palliation that no History of any Age or Nation can afford us the like impudent and execrable Examples of Baseness and Hypocrisie And therefore let not the living man complain c. § 20. 3. Another pregnant and serviceable Topick of Argumentation is to load his Adversary with Consequences of Atheism Popery and Mahumetanism though for any Reason I have given him he might as plausibly have charged me of Magick or Necromancy or what perhaps may seem more monstrous of Fanaticism But this is one of the most elegant Idiotisms of their Language and most powerful Figures of their Logick whatsoever they touch is immediately turn'd into Atheism they can wring this Conclusion out of all Premises as they can draw some Doctrines out of all Texts 'T is an odious Inference and then 't is no matter for its Truth and Coherence a wide Mouth and a bold Face shall make good the Charge and what they want of Rational Deduction is easily supplyed by Noise and Confidence Their Followers they know never examine things by the Rules of Reason and Discourse put but an ugly Consequence into their Mouths and they swallow it with a glibber satisfaction then the purest and most refined Reasonings and peremptorily conclude you guilty of all the horrid Tenets and Assertions that their Leaders will throw upon you And there lies all their strength in the Ignorance and Credulity of the Multitude Instances of this nature are innumerable their great Anak of Disputation I. O. to mention no more never commenced a Dispute against any Perswasion but he immediately brought the Controversie to this issue He cannot Arraign the Lords Prayer it self but Atheism and Blasphemy must into the Indictment The asserting that Form of Words says he confirms many in their Atheistical Blaspheming of the Holy Spirit of God and his Grace in the Prayers of his People And when some Learned Men of the Church of England publish't the Biblia Polyglotta the chief Contriver of that Noble Work writes some Prolegomena suitable to the nature and design of the Undertaking especially to defend and assert the Certainty Integrity and Divine Authority of the Original Texts but among other Discourses he happens to assert the Novelty of the Hebrew Punctation an Opinion own'd by the concurrent suffrage of almost all the best skill'd in the Hebrew and Oriental Learning and to acknowledge various Readings in the Original Text and lastly to prove that to be no way prejudicial to their Purity and Integrity Now with what outragious Declamations does I. O. set upon these harmless Assertions and with what foul-mouthed Crys and Consequences does he pursue them and what an horrid Noise do we hear of Atheism Atheism Atheism We are told of a new Plot or design amongst Protestants after they are come out of Rome a design which they dare not publickly own p. 329. The Leprosie of Papists crying down the Original Texts is broken forth among Protestants with what design to what end or purpose he knows not God knows and the day will manifest Epist. p. 14. That this design is own'd in the Prolegomena to the Bible and in the Appendix that they Print the Original and defame it gathering up Translations of all sorts and setting them up in competition with it Epist. p. 9. That they take away all certainty in and about sacred Truth Epist p. 25. That there is nothing left unto men but to chuse whether they will turn Papists or Atheists Epist. p. 9. That there are gross Corruptions befaln the Originals which by the help of Old Translations and by Conjectures may be found out and corrected p. 205. As pernicious a Principle as ever was fixed upon since the Foundation of the
positive Precepts because they are in themselves so essentially serviceable to the design of our Creation And therefore our Saviour came not into the world to give any new Precepts of moral goodness but only to retrive the old Rules of Nature from the evil Customs of the World and to reinforce their Obligation by endearing our duty with better Promises and urging our Obedience upon severer Penalties And as the Gospel is nothing but a Restitution of the Religion of Nature so are all its positive Commands and instituted duties either mediately or immediately subservient to that end Thus the Sacraments though they are matters of pure Institution yet are they of a subordinate Usefulness and design'd only for the greater advantage and Improvement of moral Righteousness For as the Gospel is the Restitution of the Law of Nature so are these outward Rites and Solemnities a great security of the Gospel they are solemn engagements and stipulations of obedience to all its Commands and are appointed to express and signifie our grateful sense of Gods goodness in the Redemption of the World and our serious Resolutions of performing the Conditions of this new Contract and Entercourse with mankind So that though they are duties of a prime importance in the Christian Religion 't is not because they are in themselves matters of any Essential Goodness but because of that peculiar Relation they have to the very being and the whole design of its Institution Forasmuch as he that establish'd this Covenant requires of all that are willing to own and submit to its Conditions to profess and avow their Assent to it by these Rites and Instruments of stipulation so that to refuse their Use is interpreted the same thing as to reject the whole Religion But if the entire Usefulness of these and any other instituted Mysteries consists in their great subserviency to the designs of the Gospel and if the great design of the Gospel consists in the Restitution of the Law of Nature and the advancement of all kinds of Moral Goodness then does it naturally resolve it self into that short Analysis I have given of Religion and whether we suppose the Apostasie of Mankind or suppose it not every thing that appertains to it will in the last issue of things prove either a part or an instrument of Moral Vertue § 3. But we must proceed to particulars In the first place Gratitude is a very imperfect description of Natural Religion for says he it has respect onely to Gods Benefits and not to his Nature and therefore omits all those Duties that are eternally necessary upon the Consideration of himself such as fear love trust affiance Perhaps this word may not in its rigorous acceptation express all the distinct parts and duties of Religion yet the Definition that I immediately subjoin'd to explain its meaning might abundantly have prevented this Cavil were not our Author resolved to draw his saw upon words viz. A thankful and humble temper of Mind arising from a sense of Gods Greatness in himself and his Goodness to us And the truth is I know not any one Term that so fully expresses that Duty and Homage we owe to God as this of Gratitude For by what other Name soever we may call it this will be its main and most Fundamental Ingredient and therefore 't is more pertinent to describe its Nature by that than by any other Property that is more remote and less material Because the Divine Bounty is the first Reason of our Obligation to Divine Worship in that natural Justice obliges every Man to a grateful and ingenuous sense of Favours and Benefits and therefore God being the sole Author of our Beings and our Happiness that ought without any farther regard to affect our Minds with worthy resentments of his love and kindness and this is all that which is properly exprest by the word Piety which in its genuine acceptation denotes a grateful and observant temper and behaviour towards Benefactors and for that cause it was made use of as the most proper Expression of that Duty that is owing from Children to Parents but because God by reason of the eminency of his Bounty more peculiarly deserves our Respect and Observation 't is in a more signal and remarkable sense appropriated to him so that Gratitude is the first property and radical Ingredient of Religion and all its other Acts and Offices are but secondary and consequential and that Veneration we give the Divine Majesty for the excellency of his Nature and Attributes follows that Gratitude we owe him for the Communication of his Bounty and Goodness 'T is this that brings us to a knowledge of all his other Endowments 't is this that endears his Nature to us and from this result all those Duties we owe him upon the account of his own Perfections and by that experience we have of his Bounty and by that knowledge we have of his other Attributes into which we are led by this experience come we to be obliged to trust and affiance in him so that Gratitude expresly implies all the Acts and Offices of Religion and though it chiefly denotes its prime and most essential Duty yet in that it fully expresses the Reason and Original Obligation of all other parts of Religious Worship But in the next place he reckons up Repentance Conversion Conviction of Sin Humiliation Godly Sorrow as deficient Graces in my Scheme and Duties peculiar to the Gospel Though as for Repentance what is it but an exchange of vicious customs of Life for an habitual course of Vertue I will allow it to be a new species of Duty in the Christian Religion when he can inform me what Men repent of beside their Vices and what they reform in their Repentance beside their Moral Iniquities it has neither end nor object but Moral Vertue and is onely another word peculiarly appropriated to signifie its first beginnings And as for Conversion the next deficient 't is co-incident with Repentance and he will find it no less difficult to discover any difference between them than between Grace and Vertue And as for the other remaining Graces of the Gospel Conviction Humiliation Godly Sorrow and he might as well have added Compunction Self-abhorrency Self-despair and threescore words more that are frequent in their mouths they are all but different Expressions of the same thing and are either parts or concomitant Circumstances of Repentance After so crude and careless a rate does this Man of Words pour forth his talk In the next rank comes in Self-denial a Readiness to bear the Cross and Mortification as new Laws of Religion But as for Self-denial 't is nothing else than to restrain our appetites within the limits of Nature and to sacrifice our brutish Pleasures to the interests of Vertue As for a Readiness to bear the Cross 't is nothing but a constant and generous Loyalty to the Doctrine of the Gospel and a Resolution to suffer any thing
no other determination than the choice of natural Reason So that though it be necessary to Instituted Worship that it should be appointed yet 't is not necessary to divine Worship that it should be instituted And now though Attendance to this Distinction would have avoided all Ambiguity and Confusion in this Enquiry yet our Author stifly over-looks it and solemnly confutes my Assertion concerning Eucharistical Offerings by Instances of Expiatory Sacrifices which I had before proved to his hand must rely upon positive appointment from their peculiar Use and Nature and not because this was necessary to the Being and Design of Religion it self But if we will confine our Talk to the subject matter of my Assertion viz. Eucharistical Oblations or any other outward significations of the natural Worship of God in the first Ages of the World I before affirmed and do still maintain that they who say they were enjoyn'd and warranted by divine Command take the Liberty of saying any thing without proof or evidence § 8. But if they are Arbitrary Inventions of men our Author desires to have a Rational Account of their Catholicism in the World and one Instance more of any thing not natural or divine that ever prevail'd to such an absolute universal acceptance amongst mankind As for the latter part of his demand I think festival solemnities may challenge as great Antiquity and Universality as Sacrifices There being no Nation in the World that ever was known to be altogether destitute of set and publick Festivals in honour of their Gods and as I before observed the Anniversary Sacrifices of their First-fruits was the most ancient and most universal solemnity of Worship in the World And some learned men conjecture with as much Probability as the nature of the thing will bear that such were the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel and that from the Propriety of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the end of days which say they implies some set and solemn season of the year and there is no Idiom more frequent in the holy Scriptures than to express set and anniversary seasons by Days To omit innumerable other Texts 1 Sam. 2.9 The Yearly Sacrifice is called Sacrificium Dierum so that the End of Days implies the Revolution of the Year when Abel offer'd the First-born of his Flocks and Cain the First-fruits of his Fields But however this may be 't is attested by all the best Records of ancient Times that Harvest Sacrifices and Festivals of First-fruits were the most Ancient most Catholick and perhaps only Publick Solemnities of Religion And yet it will be as impossible to discover any Obligation from Nature or any Warranty from divine Institution for their Practice as for the Original of Idolatry which yet had universally prevail'd over the Religion of mankind and for ought I know might have done so still had not divine Providence been pleased to disabuse the wretched World by so many Revelations and miraculous discoveries of himself so that it is possible some things may acquire to themselves a Catholick Credit and Reputation that never had it bestowed upon them by God or by Nature especially if they chance to have any near Relation or Connexion with universal and unabolishable Truths But seeing our Author desires a particular account of the Catholicism of Sacrifices thus it hapned The first Ages of Mankind having a full and certain knowledge of the Being of God and a strong sense of the necessity of his Worship in that they had the same assurance then of the first cause of their Beings as we have now of our Fore-fathers and Progenitors From hence they became obliged from the instinct of Nature and the dictates of Right Reason to acknowledge and celebrate their Creators Bounty and to return some Expressions of Gratitude to him for his Favours and Benefits Divine Worship then being so clear a dictate of Humane Nature it was but agreeable to the Reason of Mankind to express their sense of this Duty by outward Rites and Significations Now what Symbol could be more natural and obvious to the Minds of Men whereby to signifie their homage and thankfulness to the Author of all their Happiness than by presenting him with some of the choicest Portions of his own Gifts for they had nothing else to present in acknowledgment of that Bounty and Providence that had bestowed them And this was so far from arguing any pregnancy of Invention that to have missed it would in my conceit have been flat stupidity For though all sensible signs derive their significancy from positive Institution yet the ground and reason of their Institution is usually unless they are inept and irregular some natural suitableness they have in them to denote the thing signified Now I will challenge our Authors wit to pitch upon any thing in Nature that could be so easie and proper to express by way of outward action their thankfulness to God as these Eucharistical Oblations so easie a thing is it to fetch their beginning from Humane Agreement without recourse to the Authority of Nature or Divine Prescription The Religion of Sacrifices then being the most conspicuous Symbol and Signification of the Worship of God among the first Fathers of Mankind it descended to their Posterity together with their natural sense of Religion of which these were the onely visible signs and indications and therefore without them it could have had no outward and sensible appearance in the World because these were its onely practical way of conveyance and by continuing to observe the Rites and Customs of their Ancestors they kept up their dictates of Religion And thus the Idea of God and the use of Sacrifices were propagated together into all Societies of Mankind by their observance of the Customs and Traditions of their Progenitors Now so easie and unforced is the probability of this account of their Catholicism though they owe their original purely to the Choice and Institution of men that as long as their Off-spring kept up any belief of the Notion of a Deity or any Reverence for the wisdom of their Fore-fathers it was morally impossible in the ordinary course of humane Affairs the Tradition of Sacrifices should ever be lost in the World And this may suffice to shew how it came to pass that they found such a Catholick entertainment in all Societies of Mankind and it was all one as to that whether they had their first beginning from humane invention or divine Institution for when once they had acquired the Esteem and Reverence of Religion Use and Custom would ever after keep up their Practice and Reputation in the World So that though it was impossible they should ever obtain such an universal use and credit by their own strength and upon their own account yet when they had once obtain'd such an inseparable Connexion with mens natural indelible sense of Religion it was then as impossible without such an extraordinary change of things as was brought
Service immediately become sinful and offensive to the Almighty But if that would not alter their nature then the case of Symbols that depend upon Institution is as to their lawfulness and divine acceptance the same with those that are founded upon Prescription And now what think you are not Churches likely to be bravely govern'd and order and decency in the Worship of God admirably provided for when all their solemn Laws and Injunctions shall be controul'd by such precarious Fancies and Fooleries Can you imagine any thing judged more scandalous in these Mens Case-Divinity than the horrid Crimes of Peace and Obedience And so I leave it to you to judge whether the farther these Men proceed in the pursuance of their Principles and Pretences they do not all the way increase our amazement at the prodigiousness of their Impertinency But having assign'd this vast distance between customary and instituted Symbols of Reverence he adds this final determination of the whole Case Now concerning these last one Rule may be observed namely that they cannot be of one kind and signifie things of another by virtue of any Command and consent of Men unless they have an absolute Authority both over the sign and thing signified and can change their Natures or create a new Relation between them Now Sir our Author grows wanton and resolves in a jolly humour to maintain against my self and all my Associates that Averia Capta in Withernamio non sunt Replegibilia For 't is all perfect Waggery and Gibberish and a meer design to puzzle and confound us with unintelligible subtilties and these are the Eisotericks of the Sect that ought not to be understood by any but the Sons of Mystery and I doubt not but you understand the sense and reason of this Rule as much as you do those prescribed by the Rosie-Crucian Professors in order to the discovery of the Great Secret But whatever the meaning of the Oracle may be why must it be limited to instituted rather than customary Symbols For what cause should Usage where there is no natural relation between the sign and the thing signified be allowed to create one rather than the Commands of lawful Authority For my part I am not able to imagine any reason unless it be his great Democratical Principles that ascribes less Power to the Soveraign Prince than to the Common People that are always the chief Authors and Abettors of Custom Or why may we suppose that may apply things of one kind to signifie things of another by virtue of popular Consent without having an absolute Authority over the sign and thing signified and yet not suppose the same thing of the Edicts of Princes and the Votes of Convocations especially when in this weighty Rule he has been pleased for there is no other ground for it but his own good pleasure to exclude the Consent of Men as well as the Commands of Governours Nay why may not they or any thing else have Power to appropriate new names and signs to things without having any absolute Authority over the things themselves And lastly why must a Power of creating new Relations between them infer a Power to change their Natures For so are they here represented by our Author as things coincident But such manifest and palpable Trifles are not worth so many Objections And therefore to conclude whereas I declared the signification of Ceremonies to be of the same Nature and Original with that of Words equally Arbitrary and equally depending either upon Custom or Institution this says he will not relieve me in this matter for words are signs of things and those of a mixed Nature partly Natural partly by Consent But they are not of one kind and signifie things of another for say the Schoolmen where words are signs of sacred things they are signs of them as things but not as sacred But do you or any of his own Lay-proselytes understand this Scholastick subtilty Does he not leave you as himself speaks in the Briers of unscriptural Distinctions However why may we not affirm the same thing of Ceremonies that he is here pleased to appropriate to Words And then I hope there is no harm done and once for peace and quiet sake we will so far gratifie the tenderness of their Consciences and curiosity of their Fancies as to promise never to ascribe any other significancy to things than what himself is here content to bestow upon words and then I hope that will appease all their Doubts and satisfie all their Scruples And yet after all these Metaphysical abstractions will not relieve us in this affair For I know no words whose signification can be pretended to be natural as he talks unless Tintinnabulum and some few others that happen to strike our Organs with the same kind of noise as the things themselves do of which they are significative And none of these that I know of are concern'd in the Worship of God unless the Clinking of the Saints Bell so that by this casual Concession we have regain'd back the Grant of its lawful Use and Custom Though in their strict Reformation it was abolish't for the more Orthodox way of Chiming which yet carried in it as much Symbolical-Resemblance to the ensuing Sermon as any of our Ceremonies do to the matters of their signification But to be ingenuous and confess the plain and undisguised truth to a Friend I am at an utter loss for a Reply to this profound subtilty of the Schoolmen because I understand neither its sense nor its pertinency unless you will accept of this that sacred things have words to signifie them not onely as things but as sacred otherwise there are no words to express Divine Worship as such for that as such is sacred And therefore in spight of Scotus and all his Myrmidons I dare positively aver That words used in Religious Worship do not only signifie things as things but things as sacred because if they should not they were no signs of Religious Worship So that you see notwithstanding this unscriptural Distinction which yet you know by our Authors Principles is not to be attended to in our present Enquiry my comparison between the signification of Words and Ceremonies stands firm as the Pillars of the Earth and the Foundations of our Faith But are not tender Consciences come to a fine pass when they shall remonstrate to the Decrees of Princes and the Laws of Commonwealths upon such shadows of scruple and shall run People into such woful Divisions and Disorders for a senseless Word They cannot but have a mighty Reverence for Government and a deep sense of Duty to Superiours that can wriggle themselves out of their Obedience by such little shifts and satisfie their Consciences with such lamentable excuses In a word is it not a sad Reflection to consider how many of the People of this Nation have been scared out of their natural Candour and Civility and Wits too by a few idle Words
aside their Prejudices corrupt Interests and Passions they would see at first view that this Principle is not foreign unto what is in an hundred places declared and taught in the Scripture But Sir Big words break no shins nor will Brags and Threatnings pass for current Demonstrations This is the only thing to be proved and the Principle it self refuses to accept of any other evidence but what is expresly approved and warranted by holy Writ yet when he comes to vouch its sacred Authority he only gives in his own Affidavit And if you will take his word you may rest assured there are hundred of Texts in the sacred Volume that have adopted the Patronage of his Cause though at present he is not at leisure to check and rebuke our Confidence with one single Testimony And therefore is it not strange that when the Issue of the whole Controversie depends so absolutely upon this Performance yet whenever they are forced upon its Attempt they still adjourn the Dispute and respite the only Proof that we demand and they ought to produce to a fairer and more seasonable Opportunity And this has ever been one of their most serviceable Arts of trifling in matters of a more remote Concernment and secondary Evidence they are confident and abound with Noise and Reasoning but when they come to approach the Vitals of the Question their Fury immediately abates and they are struck with a sudden speechlessness and you must wait for the farther Prosecution of their Argument till they are restored to the Power of Speech and use of Tongue and then do they entertain you with all the old Tale over again till they come just to the former difficulty and then are they seized upon by the former Astonishment And by this Artifice have they so long kept up this Controversie in spite of so many publick and dishonourable Baffles They have always been brisk and talkative in the beginning of the Dispute till they are run up into the main difficulty and driven into the streights of the Enquiry and there they fling down their Arms sometimes cry Quater and sometimes escape by flight and so at present the War ends and Peace ensues till some other pert Fellow chance to take up the Cudgels and he uses the same Play till he is brought to the same foil and there is an end of him and so on from Generation to Generation And hence it is not unobservable that all their Writers have ever begun and ended with Cartwright and as he wrangled himself into Obedience and Conformity so have they all at length either disputed themselves out of their former folly or into a farther Madness And the zeal of their warmest Bigots has ever ended either in a peaceable Reduction to the Church or in some wilder and more extravagant separation By continual wrangling they contract a sowr and froward Humour Every thing annoys their fretful and exulcerated Minds They are peevish and displeased with their own Friends and their own Fraternity and this transports them into some new-fangled Pranks and Projects Hence Coppingers Raptures and Visions and familiar Conferences with Almighty God hence Hackets Ecstasies and Revelations and blasphemous Prophesies and hence the mad Frekes and Treasons of Penry that precious Martyr of Jesus Christ. An habitual discontent and restlesness of mind heated their choler and melancholy bloud into perfect Frenzy and Outrage But the most remarkable Instance of this Capricious Humour is the story of Robert Brown who you know left Cartwright and the Disciplinarians in Babylon as well as the Church of England and could find no Church in the World pure enough for his own Communion till he had establish'd one of his own Draught and Projectment and then nothing was or could be agreeable to the Word of God but what was contained in his Pamphlets of Reformation But having run his Followers into such an obstinate and unfortunate Schism the man himself becomes unsetled in his own mind and unconstant to his own Principles and consumes the Remainder of his days in discontent and restlesness of Thoughts Sometimes in his lucid Intervals he would suffer himself to be reclaimed to some sobriety of behaviour by and by in a sullen and peevish humour he falls into his old fits of Raving and then every thing dislikes him and he falls out with his own draughts of Reformation Anon in a pensive and melancholy mood he breaks all into Tears and Invectives against Cartwright and the Disciplinarian Brethren the natural Pursuance of whose Principles had run him into all those miseries and Calamities of life and thus by reason of his frequent Relentings and perpetual Relapses the miserable Wretch was continually tossed from Gaol to Gaol till having tried his Fortune in two and thirty Prisons and being tired with grief and poverty he at last setles in Conformity for a good Benefice where he lived to a great Age without making any more disturbances and defections in the Church till he died frekish in Northampton Gaol whither he had been committed for breach of peace and disorderly behaviour and so as it was meet perish'd this great Prophet in that little Ierusalem And 't is nothing but this mixture of Pride and Peevishness that bewitches men into a love of Schisms and Divisions they are so highly conceited of themselves and so willing to censure and despise others that nothing shall either suit or satisfie their humour unless it be of their own ordering and contrivance And then must these phantastick Sots attempt to reform the World they must be sure to condemn and vilifie the wisdom of Superiours and fancy themselves as Men appointed by special Providence to give check to the errours and follies of Mankind And what so delicious to people of this complexion as to be the first Founders of Changes and Innovations And the most famous Impostors and Enthusiasts of all Ages have ever bewrayed rank symptoms of this spightful humour both in their principles and practices And I know some Men in whose haughty and contracted Looks Schism and Singularity are as legible as if they carried the mark of a thorough godly Reformation in their Foreheads and what will not such Persons attempt or endure for the glory and satisfaction of leading a Party § 3. In the next place to skip over his old complaint of the vehemence of my stile he adds a caution of his own to limit and explain this general Position viz. That nothing ought to be established in the Worship of God as a part of that Worship or made constantly necessary in its observance without the Warranty before mentioned for this is expresly contended for by them who maintain it and who reject nothing upon the Authority of it but what they can prove to be a pretended part of Religious Worship as such This is another eminent instance of their shuffling way of talk for whereas this Principle was first framed and managed by themselves as the most forcible
and sanctified use and all things whose use is holy and sanctified are I think of a Religious Importance and therefore if Humane Power may warrantably institute such civil Observances as these that alone is sufficient to my purpose for they as such are religious Rites and Customs However by this Mans Principles what Authority has any Person to direct civil Observances to religious Ends and Uses unless as he argues against the Institution of Symbolical Ceremonies he could change their Natures or create a new Relation between them If he can his grand scruple for all his Atoms are as big as Mountains of applying things of one kind to signifie things of another is of no force against instituted Symbols For the only thing that seems to grieve and offend him is the arrogance of attempting to create new Relations 'T is presumption for any finite Being to assume to it self such an infinite Power Works of Creation are proper to Omnipotence so that it can be no less than Blasphemy and presuming our selves equal to the Almighty to pretend to his Power of creating Relations Thus 't is read in his Philosophy and yet according to the more modern and reformed Metaphysicks this is judged so common and feasible an exploit that some Doctors are of Opinion that any Child is able with the allowance of a Truss of Straw to create him Fifty thousand in a day What then think you of the force and truth of that Argument that supposes this so great and so known an absurdity that to reduce you to it is to drive you into contradictions and run you up against first Principles Well! were Duns alive he would break a Lance or pluck a Crow with our Author about this subtlety and would maintain to his Teeth that the Power of creating Relations is competent to finite Beings But to be short and serious Were you ever in all your Life entertain'd with such Fairy Tales and meer Romances in matters of this importance Consider with your self after what rate this Man has behaved himself towards the Church of England and then consider how all his implacable Zeal and Indignation against her Laws and Customs resolves it self entirely into an Antipathy against Significant Ceremonies and then consider how the only ground of his hatred and aversation to them is the Giant-like Impiety of assaying to create Relations between signs and things signified and then in the last place consider the infinite vanity and triflingness of this pretence and when you have considered all these things I leave it to your own Natural Logick to draw out one farther Conclusion But I have entertain'd you too long with the Musick of this Mans Rattles and therefore to be short after all this sport and dalliance with these childish Notions and gay Nothings 't is beyond all peradventure certain that the Love-Feasts and Kiss of Charity were meer Religious Rites and Customs and pecuculiar Appendages to some publick Offices and Solemnities of Religion and this is so vulgarly known that no Man living but our Author could ever with such a slight and easie confidence have turn'd them over for civil Observances when they were never used upon any occasion but in their Religious Assemblies And what stronger evidence can we desire to prove them Religious Rites than their being appropriate to Religious Duties Who almost is ignorant that in the Primitive Church they always concluded their publick Prayers in form of Benediction wishing Peace and Unity And this being finish't they always seal'd their mutual affections with the Holy Kiss for so it is called by St. Paul Rom. 16.16 And what Quotation out of the Fathers more trite and vulgar than that of Iustin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Prayers are ended we salute each other with a Kiss And therefore 't is by Tertullian stiled Signaculum Orationis their publick Prayers being ever concluded with this friendly Ceremony And then as for the Agapae and Feasts of Charity they were certain sacred Meetings where Christians of all conditions were wont to eat promiscuously together without making any difference between the Rich and Poor the Mean and Honourable in token both of their friendship and equality And they were so meerly intended for the ends of Piety and Devotion that they were inseparable from the holy Communion and indeed made up part of the Solemnity § 12. And now upon the review of these things such shadows and vanishing appearances are these Mens excuses and exceptions that I cannot imagine they are serious and in good earnest in their pretences but they are fitted to puzzle and amuse the common people and that is sufficient to their purpose to keep up the Party and perpetuate the Faction And if they do but bolt out upon them with an hard or what to them is the same an insignificant word a Child is not more afraid of a Church-porch at Midnight than they of our Churches at Noon-day and they dread the appearance of a Surplice as they would a Ghost or a Spectre Though they as little understand the Principles and Pretensions of their Ringleaders as they do Aristotle's Metaphysicks and are not so subtle as to discern the iniquity of a Symbolical Rite and if any of them have by converse with their deeper Rabbies pickt up a pittance of this Learned Gibberish as Peasants and Country Swains do shreds of Latin as well as our Author they talk it by rote with impertinent zeal and clamour and passion But if you demand of them Where lies the real exception against Symbolical wickednesses they can give you as wise an account as if their Preachers had rail'd at them under the horrid Names of Tohu and Bohu So that the tenderness of vulgar Conscience is nothing else but the stubbornness of popular Folly They have been abused into absurd Principles and seditious Practices and then to be at all adventure tenacious of their casual Prejudices against the Convictions of Reason and the Commands of Authority shall be gloried in as the pure Result of a nicer Integrity and more precise Godliness And this reminds me of a suggestion that I before intimated upon this occasion What a vain thing it is to have any regard to these Mens Proposals of Condescensions and Accommodations when nothing but Schism lies at the bottom of all their Designs and Principles and when their Demands and their Resolutions are so unreasonable that 't is as impossible to satisfie as convince them and they scarce agree in any one common Principle unless this by all ways to keep up the Faction and therefore though they are resolved never to be quiet till they have brought Authority to bend to their will and humour yet whenever the notorious folly of their Principles is unravell'd and the palpable unreasonableness of their Schism exposed and by consequence the Cause endangered then all their Out-cry is mutual Forbearance and Condescension Though we can never learn either the nature of their Grievances or the end of
declared by what they have done and what they are desirous to do That the true state of the Cause and Quarrel is Religion in Reformation whereof they are so forward and zealous that there is nothing expressed in the Scots Declarations former or later which they have not seriously taken to heart and endeavoured to effect c. And in a Letter from the Assembly of Divines to them by order of the House of Commons they call it twice The Cause of Religion And the Assembly in answer to the Parliament desire it may be more and more cleared Religion to be the true state of the differences in England and to be uncessantly prosecuted first above all things giving no sleep to their eyes or slumber to their eye-lids until it be setled In their Declaration and Protestation to the whole World Octob. 22. 1642. They are fully convinced that the Kings Resolutions are so engaged to the Popish Party for the suppression and extirpation of the true Religion that all hopes of peace and protection are excluded that it is fully intended to give satisfaction to the Papists by alteration of Religion c. That great means are made to take up the differences betwixt some Princes of the Roman Religion that so they might unite their strength to the extirpation of the Protestant Cause wherein principally this Kingdom and the Kingdom of Scotland are concerned as making the greatest Body of the Reformed Religion in Christendom c. For all which Reasons we are resolved to enter into a Solemn Oath and Covenant with God to give up our Selves our Lives and Fortunes into his hands and that we will to the utmost of our Power and Judgment maintain his Truth and conform our selves to his Will And in the Declaration upon the Votes of no further Address to be made to the King by themselves or any one else Feb. 17. 1647. the Lords and Commons make Religion one of the great Motives upon which they proceeded for say they the torture of our Bodies by most cruel Whippings slitting of Noses c. might be the sooner forgotten had not our Souls been Lorded over led captive into Superstition and Idolatry triumphed over by Oaths ex Officio Excommunications Ceremonious Articles new Canons Canon-Oaths c. p. 19. And in the last Paper to the Scotch Commissioners Feb. 24. 1648. they declare that the Army of the Houses of Parliament were raised for maintenance of the true Religion and that they invited them to come to their assistance and declared the true state of the Quarrel to be Religion and they earnestly desire the General Assembly to further and expedite the assistance desired from the Kingdom of Scotland upon this ground and motive that thereby they shall do great service to God and great honour may redound to themselves by becoming Instruments of a Glorious Reformation c. This was the stile of all their Papers from 42 to 48 till some of the Grandees of the Independent Faction had by their hypocritical Prayers malicious Preachings counterfeit Tears unmanly Whinings false Protestations and execrable Perjuries scrued themselves up into a Supremacy of Power and Interest and then they alter'd the stile of their Pretences with the change of their Affairs and suited their Remonstrances to their Fortunes and so stopt not at their old demands of Reformation and purity of Ordinances these Pretexts were too low for the greatness of their Attempts and Resolutions and were not sufficient to warrant the Murther of their lawful Sovereign and therefore it was necessary for them to take up with new Pleas suitable to the wickedness of their new Purposes and then nothing was big enough to Arreign or Condemn their Prince but the Charge of Treason and Tyranny and the Sentence of Death was passed and executed upon him as a publick Enemy to the Commonwealth So that though Pretences of Secular and Political Interest were necessary to cut off his Head yet it was purely Zeal and Reformation that brought him to the Block To these Declarations from the Press I might add their Declarations from the Pulpit their Preachers incessantly encouraging the People to fight against the King as the most acceptable service to God and the People accordingly fought against him because they were perswaded that he was a Papist and would bring in Popery that the Common-Prayer was the Mass in English Organs were Idolatry and Episcopacy Antichristian It was nothing but the purity of the Gospel to which they so cheerfully sacrificed their Thimbles and Bodkins And though here it were easie to collect vast Volumes there being scarce a Parliament-exercise for which the Preacher had the Thanks of the House in which some sands and sweat were not wasted in crying up the piety of their Intentions for the Reformation of Gospel-Ordinances But because this would prove a Work too Voluminous I will therefore put off my Reader and satisfie my Adversary too with two or three passages out of the inspired Homilies of I. O. in his several Dispensations In his Sermon preached before the Parliament April 29. 1646. he thus bespeaks them From the beginning of these Troubles Right Honourable you have held forth Religion and the Gospel as whose Preservation and Restauration was principally in your Aims and I presume malice it self is not able to discover any insincerity in this the fruits we behold proclaim to all the Conformity of your Words and Hearts Now the God of Heaven grant that the same mind be in you still in every particular Member of this Honourable Assembly in the whole Nation especially in the Magistracy and Ministry of it that we be not like the Boat-men look one way and row another cry Gospel and mean the other thing Lord Lord and advance our own ends that the Lord may not stir up the staff of his anger and the rod of his indignation against us as an hypocritical People And Feb. 28. 1649. he tells them again Gods Work whereunto ye are ingaged is the propagating of the Kingdom of Christ and the setting up of the Standard of the Gospel And Octob. 13. 1652. From the beginning of the Contests in this Nation when God had caused your Spirits to resolve that the Liberties Priviledges and Rights of this Nation wherewith you were intrusted should not by his assistance be wrested out of your hands by Violence Oppression and Injustice this he also put upon your hearts to vindicate and assert the Gospel of Jesus Christ his Ways and his Ordinances against all Opposition though you were but inquiring the way to Sion for then they were little better than Presbyterians with your faces thitherwardâ— God secretly entwining the Interest of Christ with yours wrapt up with you the whole Generation of them that seek his face and prosper'd your Affairs on that account And lastly Feb. 4. 1658. Give me leave to remember you as one that had opportunity to make Observations of the passages of Providence in those