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
the disingenuity of his Cavils and that is all that is needful in answer to his way of proceeding which you see was not to confute but to pervert my Discourse And if I should pursue all Advantages examine all Miscarriages and lay open all Follies and Impertinencies I should presume too much upon the Publick Patience and swell my Reply to too unreasonable a Bulk so many so vain and so impertinent are his Topicks of Cavil However the remainder of his Talk is built upon the supposition of the Truth and Reality of these Falsifications and therefore by what I have already discoursed in answer to their Forgery I have made it altogether needless to take any farther notice of his wild and rambling Harangues For if they are pertinent to their Premises they are impertinent to my Discourse if they are not they are impertinent to his own Though the truth is should I grant him the priviledge he is resolved to take of falsifying yet he deduceâ— things so loosly and incoherently that I might easily make good my Cause against him if I should undertake the defence of those Untruths and Monstrous Absurdities he fastens on me I might demand of him to what purpose he here acquaints us with that solemn and systematick distinction of the Declaration of Gods Will either by the Light of Nature or by the Light of Revelation unless it be to inform the World of this new and important Mystery that a positive Command of God may as to any particular instance suspend the Obligation of the greatest Command of the Law of Nature and so it actually did in the Precept given to Abraham for sacrificing his Son For whatever any School-men may determine in this case 't is apparent here neither was nor could be any suspension of the Law of Nature whose Obligation is so eternal and unchangeable that nothing can suspend it for one moment without doing violence to the antecedent Reasons of Good and Evil but onely a positive Command to execute a Divine Decree by vertue of a Divine Commission i. e. to put his Son to death by his Authority that is absolute Lord of Life a matter against which the Law of Nature never had or could have any Prohibition For though possibly it restrained Abraham from attempting his Sons Life by vertue of his own Dominion yet when he was warranted to it by a special Command of God himself to have refused its execution had been to remonstrate to the Justice of one of the most Fundamental Laws of Nature so that there was no suspension of the Law but an alteration of the Case and a Command to do something which that neither did nor could forbid To what purpose does he twit me for asserting Magistratical Omnipotency rather than the Divine Right of Episcopacy I am at Age and Liberty as young as he would make me to chuse my own Theme and perhaps the next Book I publish that shall be the Argument of my Discourse and then I doubt not but he will as much correct me for leaving the pursuit of my former subject as he does now for pursuing it To what purpose does he preach to Soveraign Princes not to take upon themselves that absolute Power I have for my own advantage ascribed to them unless he had also proved it is not for theirs 'T is a strong Motive no doubt to encourage his Majesty to listen to his advice by informing him it was not the Acclamation of the Multitude unto Herod The Voice of God and not of Man but his own arrogant satisfaction in that Blasphemous Assignation of Divine Glory to him that exposed him to the Iudgments and Vengeance of God For certainly Princes will require more forcible Reasons to part with the absoluteness of their Soveraign Power than such Preaching Impertinencies To what purpose does he add That never any Magistrate unless Nebuchadnezzar Caligula Domitian and persons like to them ever pretended to exercise the Power here assign'd unto them I will not be so froward as to tell him that now he is as much too free in his Concessions as he is at other times too stingy for should I put him upon the proof he would want Records to make it good that all these Princes ever claimed such a bold and unlimited Jurisdiction though perhaps others have for what thinks he of Artaxerxes's Commission to Ezra Whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and the Law of the King let Iudgment be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto Death or to Banishment or to Confiscation of Goods or to Imprisonment I know not how any Prince can challenge or assume a more severe absolute and uncontroulable Power than this granted in this Commission and yet Ezra reflects upon it as a special and immediate issue of Divine Providence To what purpose does he tell us the Power I ascribe to Magistrates is none other but that which is claimed by the Pope of Rome That may be his Usurpation upon the Rights of Princes but 't is no proof that they may not challenge the Supremacy over the Consciences of their own Subjects because he usurps it To what purpose does he tell us That the Mormo here made use of is the same in substance that has been set up by the Papists ever since the Reformation When nothing can be justly pleaded in behalf of lawful Government but what may be unjustly pretended to by Tyrants and Usurpers and in the happy days of Oliver Cromwel the same Arguments and Texts of Scripture were prest for Obedience and Subjection to the Rebel as were onely design'd to secure Loyalty to rightful Soveraigns Let the Romanists make out the Justice of their Title of Supremacy over the Kingdom of England and the Equity of their Cause in the due management of their Power and then we will listen to their Pretences but in the mean while from the necessity of an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to plead the Right of a Papal Soveraignty is an impertinency onely wild enough to serve our Authors turn and signifies no more than because there is Tyranny practised in the World under fair and plausible Pretences that therefore there must be no just Grounds and Principles for lawful Government To what purpose does he waste so many Pages to enquire wherefore the Power of the Magistrate should not be extended to the inward Thoughts and Apprehensions of Men about the Worship of God as well as to Expressions of them in pure spiritual Acts of that Worship For not to catch at the ridiculous canting and mysterious Non-sense of the Expression of our inward Thoughts in pure spiritual Acts when all Expression of them is outward and corporal 't is sufficient that God has not been pleased to vest them with any Power over our Thoughts but for what cause himself best knows and therefore though I could give no account for his so doing that would not cast the least shadow of an
more especially to abet this wild and unaccountable Principle That the Word of God is the onely adequate Rule of instituted Worship which they lay down in their Positive Divinity at which they are incomparably the greatest Doctors in the World as the onely unquestionable Postulatum of all their Discourses yet when they are urged to make it out by Rational Arguments and particular Instances they talk it and talk it but as for proof and evidence they never could nor ever will be brought to produce any other beside the Proleptick certainty of the Maxim it self and therefore I will for ever bar their general Pleas and Pretences drawn from this Principle That the New Testament is the adequate Rule of Instituted Worship to the Church of Christ unless in case of the two Sacraments though as to them too all the outward Circumstances and Postures of Celebration are wholly undetermined in the Scripture till they shall specifie some particular Instances there directed and prescribed under a standing Obligation however it is not to be attended to in our present Controversie when it is as I have proved as certain and complete a Rule of moral Vertue as they can suppose it to be of Instituted Worship and therefore that cannot be any ground of Exception that whilst the former is subject to the latter should be exempt from the disposal of the Civil Jurisdiction So lamentably absurd are the main and darling Principles of these men that 't is not in the Power of Logick or Sophistry to do them any kindness and the more they stir in their Defence the more they expose their Folly § 9. And now having so wofully hurt and prejudiced his own Cause by this rash and indiscreet Attempt upon my Inference in the next place he rushes with a fierce and angry Dilemma upon my Assertion viz. That the Magistrate has Power over the Consciences of men in reference to moral Duties which are the principal Parts of Religion This Power says he is either over moral Vertue as Vertue and as a part of Religion or on some other Account as it relates to humane Society The former he gores through and through and that horn of the Dilemma is above two Pages long and here he has exactly observed the Rules and Customs of Scholastick Dispute that is always prodigal of Confutation where there is no need and niggardly where there is For when he proceeds to the latter which he knows is the only thing I all along asserted he freely grants all I can desire or demand For moral Vertues notwithstanding their peculiar Tendency unto God and Religion are appointed to be Instruments and Ligaments of humane Society also now the Power of the Magistrate in respect of Moral Vertues is in their latter use Very good And the Case is absolutely the same as to all reasons and circumstances of things in matters of Religion for though they as well as moral Vertue chiefly relate to our future Concerns yet have they also a powerful Influence upon our present welfare and if rightly managed are the best and most effectual Instruments of publick Happiness and there lies the very strength and sinew of my Argument that if Magistrates are vested with so much Power over moral Vertues that are the most weighty and essential Parts of Religion as they shall judge it needful to the Peace of Societies and the security of Government how much more reasonable is it that they should be entrusted with the same Power over matters of external Worship that are but its subordinate Instruments and outward Circumstances whenever they are serviceable to the same ends and purposes And if there be any advantage and disparity of Reason 't is apparently on this side for it were an easie Task to prove that moral Vertue is much more necessary to procure the divine Acceptance and Religion much more likely to create publick Disturbance but that is not the subject matter of our present Enquiry 't is enough that both have in some measure a Relation to these different Ends and therefore that both must in some measure be subject to these different Powers You see how shamefully this man is repuls'd by his own Attempts and that there is nothing needful to beat back his Answers but the Arguments themselves against which they are directed And now having spent his main strength in this succesless shock 't is piteous to observe how he faints in his following Assays He inquires whether this Power of the Civil Magistrate over moral Vertue be such as to make that Vertue which was not Vertue before or which was Vice 'T is of the same extent with his Authority over Affairs of Religion as I have already stated it But however to this Impertinent Enquiry he need not have sought far for a pertinent Answer it lay before his eyes when he objected it if he did not write blindfold viz. That in matters both of moral Vertue and divine Worship there are some Rules of Good and Evil that are of an eternal and unchangeable Obligation and these can be never prejudiced or altered by any humane Power But then there are other Rules that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of humane life and in things of this Nature I asserted that the Magistrate has Power to make that a Particular of the divine Law which God has not made so In answer to which he wishes I had declared my self how and wherein So I have viz. in all the peculiar and positive Laws of Nations and gave him Instances in no less matters than of Murther Theft and Incest and produced several particular Cases in which the Civil Power superinduced new obligations upon the Divine Law Which 't is in vain to repeat to one that winks against the Light you know where to find them if you think it needful But is not this a bold man to challenge me with such a scornful Assurance to do what he could not but see I had already performed Some men are confident enough to put out the day in spite of the Sun He adds The divine Law is divine and so is every particular of it and therefore 't is impossible for a man to make new Particulars and yet in the same Breath grants my Assertion as an ordinary and familiar truth if I only intend by making a thing a Particular of the divine Law no more than to make the divine Law require that in particular of a man which it did not require of him before Though that man must have a wild understanding that can mean any thing more or less There is a vast difference is there not between making a new Particular of the Divine Law and making the Divine Law require that in particular which it did not require before But says he these new particulars refer only to the acting and occasion of these things in particular 'T is no matter for that whatever they refer
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
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
he never wants for confidence to deny or slight Assertions and when their Guard is removed 't is an easie matter to fall foul upon naked Truths § 2. As for what I have asserted and proved in the next Paragraph he readily subscribes it viz. That Conscience and Religion are the strongest bands of Laws and the best security of Government and therefore that they are its greatest Enemies that endeavour to weaken or evacuate their Obligations a wise attempt of some little and pedantick Pretenders to Policy But this little ingenuity in granting 'tis once possible that I can speak truth is forced and against the grain of Nature and therefore it immediately returns with the greater violence and the words next ensuing are as lewd and shameless a Calumny as any in the whole cluster of his falsified Stories viz. That what I have here discoursed in one Section though which he is so wise as to leave his Reader to conjecture is to prove that the use and exercise of Conscience will certainly overthrow all Government and fill the World with Confusion But here methinks I smell Brimstone and had I the Father of Untruths for my Adversary I could not have engaged at greater disadvantage For what Reply should a Man make to such a rank and essential Falshood After this rate there is no commencing a Dispute with this Man but in Courts of Justice and no confuting his Arguments but by Actions of Slander I confess this is the only Rapper I have observed in this Chapter but 't is like the last clap of Thunder that breaks with a more hideous thump and strikes with down-right astonishment However Innocence they say is as safe a protection against its blasting stroaks as an old Oak and therefore I can defie his bolts with as much assurance as Cyniscus in Lucian did Iupiter when he was secure his hands were tied by Fate so that our Author has my free consent to use these wretched Weapons as long as he pleases for there is no danger such bold Falsifications should ever hurt any thing but himself and his Cause In the two following Paragraphs to omit some slight and stragling Cavils I shewed that the dread of invisible Powers is not of it self sufficient to awe the common people into subjection but tends more probably to work tumults and seditions and this was largely and I presume competently proved by the ungovernableness of the principles and tempers of some Sects of Religion But he knows whom I reflect upon Like enough for guilt and a gall'd Horse are very quick of apprehension though here methinks he is too skittish and starts too soon under the lash of my general Reproof by his own particular Applications I confess I afterwards proceeded to the known Concernments of some parties of Men among us but in this Section 't is apparent I aimed only at the mischiefs of Superstition and Enthusiasm from the tendency of their own Nature in that as they were more incident to the common people than any other vice or folly so when they had once seized their Passions they were so far from laying restraints upon their exorbitant heats that they were the strongest and most irresistible Obligations to Tumult and Sedition But seeing our Author through the quickness of his sense flinches at the smart of my Reproof before the blow is given let him satisfie me in this Inquiry If there be no particular Inclinations in some Sects of Men to Insolence and Presumption against Princes whence it comes to pass that where-ever they have been entertained Subjects have been immediately inflamed and exasperated against their Princes and Princes have been forced upon stern and ungentle courses against their Subjects that the times have been broken with rebellious defections subversions of Churches and combustions of Religion that the History of the Age has been made up of nothing but Wars Conspiracies Insurrections Spoils Ravages Desolations of States Confusions of Governments and all the other mischiefs and miseries of Humane Life Whence it comes to pass that no Sects of Men have been more prodigal of ugly Language irreverent Expressions and lewd Titles to the Princes of Christendom Who was it that honour'd the Royal Family of France with the Title of a Bitch-Wolf and her Whelps Eusebius Philadelphus Who was it that stiled Mary Queen of England Proserpine No body but Mr. Calvin Who gave Mary Queen of Scots the Title of Iezabel Honest Iohn Knox. Who that of Medea Orthodox Mr. Beza To pass by innumerable other Titles of Honour and Civility bestowed by these meek and humble Men upon Sovereign Princes 't is enough that our Author may remember who it was that branded his present Majesty as a Tyrant full of Revenge a Man of Blood a Son of Tabeal Absalom and Sheba the Son of Bichri And lastly whence it comes to pass that this party of Men have been the Authors of more mischievous and seditious Libels against Princes than all Parties in Europe beside such as Buchanans Book de Iure Regni apud Scotos Vindiciae contra Tyrannos de Iure Magistratus in subditos Eusebius Philadelphus not to mention that numberless swarm of shameless Pamphlets that were produced in our late debauch't and corrupted times 'T is enough that they have broach't more seditious Aphorisms in an hundred years than had been before discover'd from the beginning of days And there is a larger Collection of Treason in Archbishop Bancroft's dangerous Positions the Evangelium Armatum and the late Discourse of Toleration discussed than can be gather'd out of the Histories and Records of all former Ages But from Practices we proceeded to such Principles as are not by any means to be endured in any Commonwealth because they carry in them an apparent tendency to the destruction of all Government and the dissolution of all Society The first is the Fundamental Pretence of all godly Sedition and is a direct and immediate affront to the Power of Princes viz. That if they refuse to reform Religion themselves 't is lawful for their godly Subjects to do it and that by violence and force of Arms. This has been the great Nuissance of reformed Christendom it over-run the Foreign Reformation with popular Tumults and Outrages and put the Boors and Rascal multitude every where in Arms against the Edicts of State All Preachers and Leaders of Sedition have combined their Faction by virtue of this Principle and all the sub-divided Sects that at present annoy the Publick Peace have unanimously agreed both in its belief and practice And all the other Aphorisms of disturbance that have been peculiar to each Party are but so many ways of reducing and applying this general Maxim to particular Interests But though our Author has with great care and curiosity transcribed all the other Assertions that I impleaded of Sedition yet this though it was the first and the greatest Principle in the Catalogue he industriously stifles and lops it off from the following
treacherous Spirit or the malignant sin of Loyalty By Providence were Gods People call'd to sing their Songs upon Sigionoth for the interchangeable Dispensations of the imprisonment and delivery of the Committee By Providence were the hands of the Cavaliers that had itching fingers and an hankering mind after the inheritance of Gods people knockt off an hundred times and sent away with bloody fingers By Providence did the Parliament-Army trace out their way from Kent to Essex and from Wales to the North. By Providence were the zealous Parishioners of Coggeshal stirred up to make an Opposition to the Enemy gathering at Chelmsford By Providence was there a perverse Spirit of folly and errour mixed in all their Counsels By Providence were they drawn into a Party to force the People of God that were before faln together by the ears to piece together against the common Enemy By Providence was Peter deliver'd out of Prison the three Children out of the fiery Furnace Daniel out of the Lyons Den and the Essex-Committee from the Jaws of the starv'd Cavaliers By Providence was the great Dispensation of the 30. of Ian. 1648. carried on in order to the unravelling of the whole Web of iniquity interwoven of Civil and Ecclesiastical Tyranny in Opposition to the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus By Providence did Moses deliver Israel from their Egyptian Bondage and by Providence did the Rump deliver England from Tyrannous Pride and Oppression By Providence were the People of this Nation given up to fight against their Deliverers by that Opposition to make its workings more clear and conspicuous By Providence was it that in the year 1649. there was not a Potentate upon the Earth that had a peaceable Mole-hill to build himself an habitation upon and that there were so many Controversies disputing in Letters of Blood among the Nations and that for the Interest of the many By Providence were the Church-Stars the Bishops that were meerly fixed to all mens view and by their own Confession in the Political Heavens utterly shaken to the Ground By Providence was Cromwel forced to make such havock in Ireland because the Lord had sworn to have war with such Amalekites and to avenge his People from generation to generation By Providence and Cromwels choice was I. O. call'd forth to attend his Excellency in his Scottish Expedition that he might be instructed by him in the Art of discovering Gods deep and hidden Dispensations toward his secret ones By Providence the mercy whereof was composed of as many Branches of Wisdom Power Goodness and Faithfulness as any outward Dispensation has brought forth since the name of Christian was known did the Rump by the defeat of his Majesty at Worcester continue to sit in Council and the Residue of the Nation in peace By Providence a mighty Monarchy a triumphing Prelacy a thriving Conformity were all brought down to recover the People of the Lord Christ from Antichristian Idolatry and Oppression By Providence was Ireton that rare Example of Righteousness Faith Holiness Zeal Courage and Self-denial disposed to close with the mind of God with full purpose of heart to serve the will of the Lord in his Generation so that he staggered not at the greatest difficulties through Unbelief but being stedfast in Faith he gave glory to God and Davidically prepared the way of the Lord in paths of Bloud The time would fail me to speak of Isaac and Ioseph Gideon Noah Daniel and Iob do but consider the Providential Circumstances of all Transactions in our late Rebellion and that will discover where dwells that spirit which actuated all the great Alterations that hapned in these Nations For believe him such things have been brought to pass as have filled the World with Amazement and well they might A Monarchy of some hundred Years continuance always affecting and at length wholly degenerated into Tyranny destroyed pulled down swallowed up a great and mighty Potentate that had caused Terrour in the Land of the living and laid his Sword under his head brought to punishment for Bloud Hypocrites and selfish men abundantly discover'd wise men made fools and the strong as water A Nation that of Scotland engaging for and against the same cause backward and forward twice or thrice always seeking where to find their own gain and interest in it at length totally broken in opposition to that cause wherewith at first they closed Multitudes of Professours one year praying fasting mightily rejoycing upon the least success bearing it out as a sign of the Presence of God another year whilst the same work is carried on cursing repining slighting the marvelous appearance of God in Answer unto Prayers and most solemn Appeals being very angry at the deliverances of Sion On the other side all the mighty successes that God hath followed poor despised ones withal being with them as with those in days of old Who through faith subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained Promises stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the Sword out of weakness were made strong waxed valiant in fight turnned to flight the Armies of the Aliens He I say that shall consider all this may well enquire after that Principle which being regularly carried on yet meeting with the Corruption and Lusts of men should so wheel them about and work so many mighty Alterations Now what is this but the most effectual design of the Lord to carry on the Interest of Christ and the Gospel whatever stands in the way This bears down all before it wraps up some in bloud some in hardness and is most eminently straight and holy in all these Transactions Isa. 14.32 What shall one then answer the Messengers of the Nation That the Lord hath founded Sion and the poor◠of his People shall trust in it § 5. Thus you see how Providence and O. Cromwel still headed the Independent Faction though perhaps you may wonder how it could continue faithful so long to such a bloudy and accursed Interest But alas for that you must know it neither had Power at first to refuse the Cause nor being once engaged to retreat for by the power of Faith they can at their pleasure press it to the Service and by the strength of Imagination they can bind the Thoughts of the Almighty and engage all his Attributes to joyn in with their designs and in their way of arguing they never want for Inducements to draw in Providence and the Rabble to their Assistance and that chiefly among many other by these four Topicks 1. By applying old Prophesies to present Transactions it concerns not to what particular Affair they might relate if they can be streined by Faith or Fancy to suit any present Exigence the honour of Providence lies at stake not to suffer such choice Believers to stick in the mire and therefore God is bound to protect and deliver them
take it ill in good earnest if we only deny them the Liberty and free Exercise of their Religion till they are willing to give us some security of their being governable § 12. The second part of Protestancy is the Reformation of Doctrine and here the design was to abolish the Corruptions and unwarrantable Innovations of the Church of Rome and to retrieve the pure and primitive Christianity It was not their aim to exchange Thomas Aquinas his Sums for Calvin's Institutions or Bodies of School-Divinity for Dutch Systems but to reduce Christianity to the prescript of the Word of God and the practice of the first and uncorrupted Ages of the Church to clear the Foundations of our Faith from all false and groundless Superstructures and once more recover into the Christian World a pure and Apostolical Religion And therefore the only Rule of our Churches Reformation were the Scriptures and four first general Councils She admits not of any upstart Doctrines and new Models of Orthodoxy but all the Articles of her Belief are ancient and Apostolical and if she her self should teach any other Propositions she protests against their being matters of Faith and of necessity to Salvation And for this reason she imposes not her own Articles as Articles of Faith but of Peace and Communion Nor does she censure other Churches for their different Confessions but allows them the Liberty she takes to establish more or less Conditions of Communion as the Governours of the Church shall deem most expedient for peace and unity And she only requires of such as are admitted to any Office Imployment in the Church subscription to them as certain Theological Verities not repugnant to the Word of God which she has particularly selected from among many other to be publickly taught and maintain'd within her Communion as necessary or highly conducive to the preservation of Truth and prevention of Schism and for this reason she passes no other censure upon the Impugners of her Articles than what she has provided against the Impugners of the Publick Liturgy Episcopal Government and the Rites Ceremonies of Worship because they are all intended to the same end the avoiding Disorders and Confusions These then are the conditional Articles of the Communion of the Church of England and they are necessary and excellent provisions for peace and unity For among all the Disputes and Divisions of Christendom it is but reasonable she should take security of those Mens Doctrines and Opinions whom she intrusts in publick Imployments to prevent her being embroil'd in perpetual Quarrels and Controversies So that Subscriptions to the Articles is required chiefly upon the same account as the Oath of Supremacy whose Penalty is That such who refuse it shall be excluded such places of Honour and Profit as they hold in the Church or Commonwealth And 't is very reasonable that Princes should be particularly secured of the Fidelity of those Subjects that they entrust with their publick Offices And thus all the punishment that the Church of England is willing to have inflicted upon Dissenters from her Articles is to deprive them of their Ecclesiastical Preferments as being unfit for Ecclesiastical Imployments For though she is not so careless of her own peace as to impower Men in the exercise of her publick Offices at all adventure so neither is she so rigorous as to make Inquisition into their private Thoughts And therefore we are not so harsh and unmerciful as somebody you wot of who would be thought a warm Bigot for Toleration and yet has sometime profest he would give his Vote to banish any Man the Kingdom that should refuse their Subscription But as for the absolute Articles of the Faith of the Church of England they are of a more ancient date they were not of her own contriving but such as she found establish't in the purest and most uncorrupted Ages of the Church and in the times nearest to the primitive and Apostolical simplicity That is the measure of her Faith and the standard of her Reformation here she fixes the bounds of her Belief and seals up the Symbol of her Creed to prevent the danger of endless Additions and Innovations But as for all other matters I say with the late Learned Archbishop as he discourses against Fisher If any Errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation can be found then I say and 't is most true Reformation especially in cases of Religion is so difficult a work and subject to so many Pretensions that 't is almost impossible but the Reformers should step too far or fall too short in some smaller things or other which in regard of the far greater benefit coming by the Reformation it self may well be passed over and born withal And withal by virtue of this Fundamental Maxim may in due time and manner be redrest By the wisdom and moderation of this Principle the Church secures her self against the Prescription of Errour So that if she should at any time hereafter discover any defect in any particular instance of her Laws and Constitutions and in a work so great so various and so difficult 't is not impossible as the Archbishop observes for the greatest caution and prudence to be overseen in some smaller things she has reserved a just power in her self to reform and amend it This in brief is a true and honest account of the Protestancy of the Church of England But so it hapned that beyond the Seas there arose another Generation of pert and forward Men the vehemence of whose Zeal and Passion transported them from extream to extream so that they immediately began to measure Truth not by its agreement with the Scriptures and the purest Ages of the Church but by its distance from the See of Rome and the Apostacy of latter times whereby it so came to pass that they did but barter Errours in stead of reforming Corruptions and in lieu of the old Popish Tenets only set up some of their own new-fangled conceits But above all the rest there sprung up a mighty Bramble on the South-bank of the Lake Lemane that such is the rankness of the Soil spred and flourish't with such a sudden growth that in a few days partly by the industry of its Agents abroad and partly by its own indefatigable pains and pragmaticalness it quite over run the whole Reformation and in a short time the right Protestant Cause was almost irrecoverably lost under the more prevailing Power and Interest of Calvinism That proud and busie Man had erected a new Chair of Infallibility and enthroned himself in it and had he been acknowledged their Supreme Pastour he could not have obtruded his Decrees in a more peremptory and definitive way upon the Reformed Churches Nothing can be rightly done in any Foreign Church or State but by his Counsels and Directions He must thrust himself in for the Master-workman where-ever they were hammering Reformation He must be privy to all the Counsels
upon the Rights of Religion So that there is no other effectual Artifice to decoy Christian Subjects into Mutiny and Rebellion but the taking Pretences of Godliness and Reformation They are all agreed in the Belief of the necessity of subjection to their lawful Superiours in all things that concern their civil rights but where the Glory of God and Purity of his Worship lie at stake there they must whet and sharpen their Zeal in his Cause and not betray the true Religion by their neglect and stupidity And let but a few crafty men whisper abroad their suspicions of Popery or any other hated name and the Rabble are immediately alarm'd and they will raise a War and embroil the Nation against an Heretical Word And to this Purpose their Leaders are ever provided with such jugling and seditious Maxims as effectually over-rule all Oaths of Allegiance and all Obligations to Obedience as that all Good Subjects may with just Arms at least defend themselves if question'd or assaulted for the cause of Religion though when they send their Armies into the Field they are as well arm'd with Offensive Weapons as their Enemies and are furnish'd with Swords and Musquets to annoy them as well as Shields and Bucklers to defend themselves That the maintenance of pure Religion passes an Obligation upon their Consciences of force enough to evacuate all Oaths and Contracts whatsoever that may stand in the way of its advancement and then how naturally does this not only warrant but enforce their Resistance to their Lawful Prince in defence of the cause of God and to extort the Free exercise of Religion by force of Arms which if they should lay down at his Command that were to betray the Gospel to the Power of its profess'd and implacable Enemies by their own neglect and cowardize Not that they fight against the King himself God forbid their intention is nothing else then to rescue him out of the Power and Possession of evil Counsellors You must not believe them such disloyal Wretches as to rebel against his Sacred Majesty alas they design nothing but the discharge of their Duty and Allegiance and though they take up Arms against his Person yet 't is in defence of his Crown and they fight against him in his Personal Capacity only to serve him in his Political That in the management and Reformation of Religion there is no respect to be had to carnal and worldly Wisdom and therefore when the Propagation of the Gospel lies at stake 't is but a vain thing for men to tie themselves to the Laws of Policy and Discretion Civil Affairs are to be conducted by secular Artifices but matters of the Church are to be directed purely by the Will of God the Warrant of Scripture and the Guidance of Providence Now what exorbitances will not this wild principle excuse and qualifie In all their disorderly and irregular Proceedings they do but neglect the Rules of carnal Policy for the better carrying on of the work of the Lord where there is no place for moderation and complyance and nothing must satisfie or appease their Zeal but a full Ratification of all their demands Though these and infinite other as vulgar Artifices are as old as Rebellion it self and though wise men can easily wash off their false Colours yet the Common People will suffer themselves to be abused by them to the end of the World partly because they are rash and heady and apt to favour all Changes and Innovations partly because they are foolish and credulous and apt to believe all fair and plausible stories but mainly because they are proud and envious and apt to suspect the Actions of their Superiours So easie a thing is it for your crafty Achitophels to arm Faction with Zeal and to draw the Multitude into Tumults and Seditions under colour of Religion whilst themselves have their designs and projects apart and influence the great turns of Affairs for their own private Ends and so manage the zealous fools as to make them work Journey-work to their ambition and imploy seditious Preachers to Gospellize their Conspiracies and sanctifie their Rapines and Sacriledges to display the piety of their Intentions and cry up the Interest of a State-faction for the Cause of God and sound an Alarm to Rebellion with the Trumpet of the Sanctuary § 15. Thus to omit the known Arts of the Grandees and Junto-men in our late Confusions were the Confederate Lords of France that involved their Native Country in such a long and bloody War during the Reign of four or five Kings at first to seek for a plausible pretence to secure and justifie their Resolution of taking up Arms against their lawful Sovereign till the Admiral Coligny hit upon that unhappy counsel to make themselves Heads of the Hugonot Faction and then they had not only a strong party to assert but a fair pretence to warrant the Rebellion And the War that was first set on foot by the envy and ambition of some Male-contents in the State was prosecuted with greater rage and fury by Zeal for the true Religion In all their Manifests and Declarations they protested for nothing with so much seeming Resolution as their Demands of Liberty and Indulgence for tender Consciences And when either Party fortun'd to be worsted they re-inforced themselves and their Cause by Religious Leagues and Covenants and then the heady multitude flowed into the assistance of the different Factions according to their different Inclinations So that by degrees to use the words of the Historian the discords of great men were confounded with the dissentions of Religion and the Factions were no more called the discontented Princes and the Guisarts but more truly and by more significant Names one the Catholique and the other the Hugonot Party Factions which under colour of Piety administred such pernicious matter to all the following mischiefs and distractions Which how sad and how tedious they were I need not inform you only this both Parties being balanced and successively encouraged by the inconstancy of Government the change of Interests of State and the windings of an ambitious Woman the publick Broils and Disorders were kept up through so many Kings Reigns and might have been perpetuated till this day had not the equality quality of the Factions been broken and the power and interest of the Hugonot Party absolutely vanquish't So that though these two opposite Parties might if let alone to themselves have lived peaceably together in the same Commonwealth yet when headed and encouraged by great Men in the State they immediately became two fighting Armies and when they were once enraged against each other by Zeal and Religion it was not possible for all the Arts of Policy to allay the storm but by the utter ruine and overthrow of one of the contending Factions Dissembled Pacifications and plaister'd Reconcilements proved more bloody and mischievous in the event than the Prosecution of an open War This would have