the multitudes of Opinions that deform and trouble this Church are generally hatcht and nursed up in the Corporations Market-Towns and other great places whereas the lesser Countrey Villages are for the most part quiet and peaceably comply with Establish't Orders And if I should say that not only the Dissatisfaction with the Rites and Government of the Church but also the Convulsions and Confusions of State took their Origin from the bad humours of those greater Societies or Congregations of people I suppose I should say no more than what the observation of every considerative man will allow and confirm Now he that searching for a reason of this difference shall impute it either to the Ease Fulness and Luxury of the former whereby they have leisure and curiosity to excogitate Novelties and spirit and confidence to maintain and abett them whilest the latter tired with hard labour neither trouble themselves nor others but apply themselves to till the ground and earn their bread with the sweat of their brows or to the multitude and great concourse of people in the former amongst whom Notions are more easily started better protected and parties sooner formed for the defence and dissemination of them He I say that discourses thus gives a true account for so much but searches not far enough to the bottom For had there been an able Learned Orthodox Clergy setled in such places they by their wisdome and vigilance would in a great measure have obvated all beginnings of these disorders partly by principling the minds of men with sound Doctrine partly convincing Gain-sayers and especially rendring the Government of the Church lovely and venerable by their wise deportment In order therefore hereunto there ought to have been the most liberal Maintenance and ingenuous Encouragement setled upon such important places That where the work was greatest and the importance most considerable the motives to undertake it might be so too To the intent that the most able and judicious Clergy-men might have been invited to and setled upon those places that most needed them But contrariwise it is most visible that in those places where most Skill is to be exercised and most Labour to be undertaken there is little Revenue to encourage the Workman In a little obscure Parish or Country Village often-times there is a well endowed Church but in these great ones generally where the Flock is great the Fleece is shorn to the Shepherds hands and so pittiful a pittance left to the Curate or Minister that he can scarce afford himself Books to study nor perhaps Bread to eat without too servile a dependance upon the Benevolence of his richer Neighbours By which means either his Spirit is broken with Adversity or the Dignity of his Office obscured in the meanness of his condition or his Influence and Authority evacuated having neither wherewith to live charitably nor hospitably or all these together nay it is well if to help himself under these Pressures he is not tempted to a sordid Connivance at or Complyance with all those Follies and Irregularities he should correct and remedy And so like Esau sell his Birthright the Dignity of the Priesthood for a mess of Pottage Now how this comes to pass that the greatest Cures have generally the least Maintenance is easily found for it is well enough known that in those Times when the Popes had a Paramount Power in England a great part of the Tythes and Revenues of Churches were by their extravagant Authority ravisht from them and applyed to the Abbies and Monasteries and this like an Ostracisme fell commonly upon the greatest Parishes as having the best Revenues and consequently the more desirable Booty to those hungry Caterpillers and so the Issue was that the richest Churches were made the poorest in many such places little more than the Perquisites and Easter-Offerings being left to those that shall discharge the Cure And then though afterwards these superstitious Societies were dissolved yet the Tythes being not thought fit to be restored to their respective Churches the consequence is that those places which ought for the good both of Church and State to be well provided for are too often supplyed by the most inconsiderable Clergy-men or those men made so by the places they supply My meaning is that by reason of the incompetent Legal Maintenance provided for such Ministers the people have it in their power either to corrupt an easie and necessitous man or to starve out a worthy and inflexible one and so whatever the humour of the place shall be it is uncontroulable and incurable To remedy these inconveniencies it hath of late pleased His Majesty and the Parliament to make some provision so far as concerns the City of London and it is hoped the same wisdom will in time take like care of other great places in the same condition for till some such course be taken it will be in vain to expect that the Church of England or the best Laws of Religion that can be devised should either obtain just Veneration or due Effect 3. I account the late Wars another Cause of the bad estate of the Church and Religion amongst us Which may perhaps seem the more strange since when men put their Lives most in danger one would think they should then take the most care to put their Souls out of danger Besides it hath been the wisdom of most Nations to desire the countenance and incouragement of Religion in all their Martial undertakings The Romans made great scruple of enterprizing any thing of that nature till either their Priests from inspection of the Sacrifice or some other of their Pagan Oracles had given them the signal And the Turkish Mufti or High-Priest must give the Prime Visier his blessing before he enters upon the business Whether it be that men indeed believe God Almighty to be the Lord of Hosts and to give Victory to those that stand best approved with him or whether it be only that they apprehend that the opinion of being under Gods favour gives reputation to their Arms inspires their men with valour and resolution and disheartens their enemies or upon whatsoever consideration it is certain the matter of Fact is true and that Religion is of great efficacy in Warlike exploits It may I say therefore seem the more strange that War should be injurious to that which it seeks to for countenance and encouragement But most strange of all that Enemies abroad should make men quarrel with their Friends at home that Iron and Steel Wounds and Blows should make men tender-conscienced that those who can find in their hearts to shed the blood of Men of Christians and of their Brethren without remorse should be so queasie stomached as to scruple every punctilio and nicety in Ecclesiastick matters And yet he that narrowly considers the rise and progress of our Disorders will find that the distractions of the Church have kept pace with those of the State and as before the War our
Mankind by making the sinister intentions of men co-operate towards them He made use of the unnatural cruelty of Joseph's brethren towards him to the preservation of the whole family of Jacob sending Joseph into Aegypt as an Harbinger and Nurse to provide for them in a famine And in respect hereof Joseph tells them it was not they but God sent him thither The Cruelty of Pharaoh who sought by severities to break and wear out the Israelites harden'd them and prepared them for all the difficulties they were afterwards to encounter The obstinacy and incredulity of the Jews proved to be the riches of the Gentiles The persecution of the Apostles at Jerusalem made way for the spreading of the Gospel into all other Countreys Instances of this kind are innumerable or if they were not yet were it very unsafe for those of the Church of Rome to make this objection lest they provoke us to say what cannot be either denyed or justified That the barbarous Tyrant and Usurper Phocas brought in the Universal Pastorship of the Bishop of Rome and that the most bloody and rapacious Princes have ordinarily been the great Patrons and Indowers of their Church thinking it seems to hallow their own Villanies and legitimate their unjust acquisitions by dividing the spoil with the Bishop and Church of Rome 3. The English Reformation was the most compleat and perfect in its kind as retaining the most antient Doctrine and soundest Confession of Faith founded upon the holy Scriptures and agreeable to the first General Councils the most Primitive Church-Government and a Liturgy the best accommodate to reconcile and unite mens Devotions Such a Liturgy as Mr. Fox the Author of the Martyrologie is not afraid to say was indited by the Holy Ghost but certainly had a great testimony in the unspeakable joy and contentment holy men took in it in King Edward the Sixths dayes their zeal for the maintenance of it longing for the restitution of it and sealing it with their blood in Queen Maries dayes and the universal triumphs and acclamations at the restoring of it in Queen Elizabeths Reign And admirable it is to consider how happy this Church and Nation then was in what Glory and Majesty the Prince reigned in what Peace and Concord the Subjects lived but especially it is remarkable how devout and pious an Age that was as is scarce perhaps to be parallel'd since the time that Christianity flourisht under Constantine the Great what reverence was then yielded to the Ministers of Religion What devotion to the publick worship How general an acquiescence of hearts and minds in it Which the greater it was the more just is our wonder and the more reasonable our inquiry what should be the Cause that in the same Church and amongst devout and honest-minded Englishmen such a zeal should terminate in so cold an indifferency as may now be observed or rather that such a blessed harmony should degenerate into so much discord as is now too discernable amongst us We read Ezra 3. that when the second Temple at Jerusalem was building the young men rejoyced at the reviving glory of their Nation and Religion but the old men that had beheld the far greater splendour and more stately Majesty of the former Temple built by Salomon they wept as contemplating how far this came short of that so that it was hard to say whether the shouts of the young men or the lamentations of the elder were the more loud And truly when we consider in how low a condition the Church of England was some few years since till it had a happy Resurrection with the return of our Gracious Soveraign will see cause to rejoyce and thank God that we are in no worse condition than we are But he that understands and considers what was the felicity of the first Age of our Reformation and compares it with the present condition of our affairs will have just cause to lament the difference For in those dayes so venerable was the Society of the Church that to be cast out of it by Excommunication was as dreadful as to be thunder-smitten that Sentence was like Proscription amongst the Romans which they counted a Civil death and dreaded as much as a Natural But now it is become a matter of Ambition with some and a piece of Glory And to be cast out of the Church is as good as Letters testimonial or recommendatory to other Assemblies There were few or none then that did not constantly frequent the Church now the Church is become the Conventicle in many places and the Conventicle the Church in respect of the fulness and frequency of the one and the unfrequentedness and destitution of the other Aristonicus came to a certain City in Greece where he observed many Temples but few Men that would hear him He therefore instead of the usual phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cryes out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hear O ye Stone-walls less hard than the hearts of men The Application is too easie in our case In that time we speak of the Liturgy and publick Prayers were counted a principal part of Gods worship now they are not only nothing without a Sermon but in danger to desecrate the Sermon too by their conjunction The Bible is scarce Canonical if it have the Prayers bound up in the same Cover and so extreamly offensive are they grown to some that they will rather totally neglect the publick Worship of God and never receive the Communion whilest they live than have to do with the Common Prayers Heretofore there were but few things scrupled in the establisht Religion and those were very few that made use of any such pretence or scruple but now it is become the great point of Sanctity to scruple every thing There was one indeed and he a great man that said there were tolerabiles ineptiae in our Liturgy and the most favourable return he met with was that he had his tolerabiles morositates Now the title of ineptiae is counted too mild an expression whatever suits not the present humour is either Jewish Popish or Superstitious This Change is sadly lamentable that good Laws should be thus trampled upon the best Church in the world thus despised and the best minded People thus abused Now my business is therefore in the first place to enquire from what Causes this hath come to pass PART I. An Enquiry into the Causes and Origin of the Separation from and Contempt of the English Reformed Church CHAP. I. Wherein are represented several things that are pretended but are not the true Causes of our distractions and dissatisfactions viz. 1. Corruption in Doctrine 2. The too near approach of this Church to the Roman 3. The Scandalousness of the Clergy All which are disproved WE have a Proverbial saying amongst us that Every one that is forty years old is either a Fool or a Physician But without a Proverb to justifie the undertaking there are but few that at
what age soever do not think themselves at years of discretion enough to pass a judgement upon and prescribe to the Body Politick whether Church or State Though it usually happens that such Empiricks either to shew their wit suspecting distempers where there are none make them or whilest they rashly adventure quiet a movere and like Englishmen will be alwayes mending they make work for better skill than their own or lastly if they discover some small matter amiss mistaking the cause of it not only lose their time and labour which would be easily pardonable but exhaust the spirits of the Patient with improper medicines and purge out the good and useful juices as noxious humours and so the Physician becomes far the greater disease of the two That our Church is of a sound and healthful constitution and might have continued so had it not met with this fortune I think I have sufficiently though briefly manifested in the foregoing Introduction But some men either loving to be alwayes reforming or having first separated from it that they may either commend their own skill or justifie their own fact must accuse the Church We read of Brutus that having killed Caesar he was alwayes after inveighing against him as a Tyrant Ità enim facto ejus expediebat saith the Historian It was expedient he should call Caesar Tyrant for otherwise himself must be a notorious Traytor So these men though the greatest disorders of the Church be but what themselves have made must find faults that they may not seem to have raised all the dust and withdrawn themselves and others from it without cause 1. And in the first place the Doctrine of this Church is blamed though thanks be to God there are but few that are of so little discretion as to bring in this charge and those that are will never be able to prove it The main if not the only thing excepted against in this kind is that the thirty nine Articles are not so punctual in defining the five points debated at the Synod of Dort as they could wish But this though it neither needs nor deserves an answer yet I shall reply these two things to it First That it is not so with the Doctrine of Christianity as with common Arts and Sciences which depend upon humane wit and invention and consequently are capable of daily improvements For the mind of man having not an intuitive knowledge but proceeding by way of discourse discovers one thing by another and infers things from one another so that there is not a Nè plus ultrà in those things but daily new discoveries dies diem docet Whereto accords the saying of wise men Antiquitas saeculi est juventus mundi That which we call the old World is but indeed the infancy of knowledge and the latter Times must needs have as much the advantage of truth as they have of deliberation and experiment But it is quite otherwise with Christianity for that depending solely upon Divine Revelation can admit of no new discoveries time may obscure it and the busie wit of man may perplex and confound it with its inventions but can never discover any thing new or bring to light any truth that was not so from the beginning For if we admit of new Revelations we lose the old and our Religion together we accuse our Saviour and his Apostles as if they had not sufficiently revealed Gods mind to the world and we incurr St. Paul's Anathema which he denounces against him whosoever it shall be nay if an Anger from Heaven that shall preach any other doctrine than what had been received And St. Jude hath told us the Faith was once that is either at once or once for all delivered to or by the Saints But if we shall pretend a private Spirit or Revelation to discover and interpret what was before delivered we do as bad we suppose Christ and his Apostles not to be able to deliver the mind of God and we open a Gap for all Impostures and delusions perpetually to infest and corrupt Christian Doctrine The consequence of these premises is that contrary to what I affirmed before of other Sciences the elder any Doctrine of Christianity can be proved to be it must needs be the truer and accordingly deserve the greater veneration from us as coming nearer the fountain of Evangelical Truth Divine Revelation and that he that talks of more clear Light of the latter times and clearer discoveries in Religion talks as foolishly as he that should affirm he could discern things better at a miles distance than the man that hath as good eyes as himself and yet stood close by the object This being so it must needs be the excellency and great commendation of this Church that her Articles of Doctrine agree better with the first Times of Christianity than the last Age and is an irrefragable Argument that she derived it not from any Lake or lower streams troubled and mudded with mens passions and disputes but from the Fountain of the holy Scripture and from those who certainly had best advantage of understanding it in its own simplicity the Primitive Church That no one Father or Writer of the Church whether Greek or Latin before St. Austin's time agreed in Doctrine with the determination of the Synod of Dort is so notoriously plain that it needs no proof nor can be denyed And if he I mean St. Austin agrees therewith yet it is certain that in so doing he disagrees as much with himself as he doth with us of the Church of England And what if St. Austin a devout good man but whose Piety was far more commendable than his Reason being hard put to it by the Manichees on one hand and the Pelagians on the other was not able to extricate himself who can help it Shall his Opinion and that which he was rather forced into by disputation than made choice of but especially shall the Determination of a few Divines at Dort vye with the constant Doctrine of the Primitive Church or make that an imputation upon our Church which is really amongst its Glories Must a novel Dutch Synod prescribe Doctrine to the Church of England and outweigh all Antiquity Shall those that knew not how God could be just unless he was cruel nor great unless he decreed to damn the greatest part of Mankind that could not tell how man should be kept humble unless they made him not a man but a stock or stone Shall I say such Men and such Opinions confront the Antient Catholick Apostolick Faith held forth in the Church of England Secondly The Articles of the Doctrine of this Church do with such admirable prudence and wariness handle these points we are now speaking of as if particular respect was had to these men and care taken that they might abundare suo sensu enjoy their own Judgements and yet without check subscribe to these Articles And accordingly it is well known that not many years since
before it lay under any ill character But that this Church doth not so syncretize with that of Rome as to make its Communion unsafe or sinful I suppose the following Considerations will give sufficient security to an unprejudiced mind In the mean time let me intreat him that hath entertained any suspicions of that kind against her to give an ingenuous Answer of these two or three Queries 1. If there be such a dangerous affinity betwixt the Church of England and the Romish how came it to pass that the blessed instruments of our Reformation such as A. Bishop Cranmer Ridley Latimer and others laid down their lives in testimony to this against that For if those of the Church of Rome could have been so barbarous as cruelly to murder those excellent persons for some slight Innovations or for differing from them in Circumstantials yet certainly such wise and good men would not have been so prodigal of their own blood nor weary of their lives as to cast them away upon Trifles It is probable at least therefore that those of the Church of Rome thought the English Reformation to be essentially different from them and it is more than probable that those holy men aforesaid thought so and did not offer to God the sacrifice of fools 2. Or how comes it to pass that all those of the Roman Communion withdraw themselves from ours and are commanded so to do by the Head of their Church under peril of damnation And on the other side the true Protestants of the Church of England think it their duty to absent themselves from the Roman Worship lest they should defile their Consciences with their Superstitions I say how comes this distance and apprehension of sin and danger reciprocally if the differences between them be inconsiderable 3. Whence comes it to pass that the Bigots of the Romish Church have more spite against our Church than against any Sect or Party whatsoever but that they take us not only for Enemies but the most mortal and formidable of all those they have to do with Or Lastly if both the Church and Church-men of England are not far enough removed from any participation with that of Rome how comes it to pass that they of all men most zealously and constantly upon all occasions stand in the gap and oppose the return of Popery into England when other men either slight the danger or are so fond of their own private sentiments as apparently to run the hazard of this for the sake of them Any reasonable man would think those men have not really such an abhorrence of Popery as they pretend and that there might easily be found terms of accommodation between them when he shall observe them more fond of every petty Opinion than concern'd for the publick Security against that common Enemy And that they will rather venture the danger of that breaking in upon them than forgo the least fancy or opinion nay will be instrumental in procuring a Toleration and suspension of the publick Laws for that which they are so jealous others should have any kindness for And for proof of this I call to witness the transactions of the last year when those very men that would be thought the Atlas's and only supporters of Protestant Religion and would give out as if their Zeal was the only Bulwark against Popery had by their separation from and enmity to this Church weakned the common interest and by their restless importunities and unlimited desires of liberty in a manner extorted a suspension of the Laws touching Religion Had not His Majesty and His Parliament timely foreseen the consequence and the whole Nation been awakned into an apprehension of the danger by the serious and constant admonitions of the Episcopal Clergy Popery might have come in like a Landflood upon us notwithstanding those quicksighted Watchmen that can spy Popery so far off I say had not the Church-men especially bestirred themselves and shewed both a better courage and zeal against Popery and also a better skill in that warfare than their Accusers the so much dreaded Enemy had ere this time been in fair hopes of attaining his desires This was a passage of so much glory to the true Church-men and so great and illustrious an instance of their integrity that I am in hope whilest it shall remain in memory Malice it self will be ashamed to lay any imputation of inclining to Popery either upon the Church or Church-men of England I shall not need to add to all this That there are as understanding men in Religion persons of as holy Lives and of as comfortable Consciences of this Churches Education as are any where to be found in the world besides Which three things together fully acquit any Church of participation with Popery For that degeneracy of Christianity is for nothing more truly hateful nor by nothing more discoverable than by its blind devotion principles of immorality and the bad security it gives to the Consciences of men which who so acquits any Church of as every considerate man must needs do this Church he shall after that very unreasonably leave any ill character upon her at least of that nature we now are speaking of 3. But there is a terrible Charge yet to come and that is against the Sufficiency but especially the Sanctity of the Clergy and Ministry of the Church of England as if they like the Sons of Eli 1 Sam. 2. 15. made men to abhor the offerings of the Lord. And this is made the pretence of resorting to Conventicles and forsaking the Church Now if this was as true as it is horribly false it might be an Objection perhaps fit for a Papist to make who is taught that the efficacy of all Divine Offices depends upon the intention and condition of him that administers But no Protestant without contradicting his own principles can make use of it to justifie his recession from the Church For if the efficacy of all Divine Ordinances depend upon the Divine Institution and the concurrence of Gods Grace with my use of them what can it prejudice me that he that administers is an evil or unlearned man so long as I prepare my self to receive benefit immediately from God in the use of the means appointed by him This therefore may serve for a malicious stone to cast at us from whom they are departed but no argument in the cause nor excuse for themselves Yet I confess nevertheless this way of arguing for we must be forced to call hard word by that name is of great prevalence with injudicious persons and able to prejudice them against the best Constitutions in the world For they not understanding the reason of things give reception and entertainment to any proposition in proportion to the opinion or reverence they have for the person that recommends it It is a known story how well the Spartans were aware of this and therefore if in their Council a man of a bad life had propounded
have taken an effectual course to make it so durable by this stratagem When he had framed the body of their Laws he pretends occasion of Travail to consult the Oracle at Delphos about their affairs but first takes an Oath of all the Lacedemonians to preserve the Laws in being inviolable till his return Which having done he resolvedly never returns to them again By this means whilest the people were by the Religion of their Oath and a long expectation of his delayed return for a long time used to the Constitutions he had established they grew so well practised in them that at last Custom had habituated and even naturalized them to them that they became unchangeable Agreeable hereunto is the observation of our own Lawyers that the Common Law as they call it is never grievous to the people and seldome repealed whatever defects are in it as Statute-Laws frequently are because long Custom and Use hath fitted either that to the men or the men to it that all things run easily and naturally that way It is observed also by Divines That when God Almighty gave a peculiar Body of Laws to the people of Israel he took not only the opportunity of their straits and adversities at their coming out of Aegypt that his Institutions might the more easily be received but also kept them fourty years under the continual education in and exercise of those Laws and that in the Wilderness where they were not likely to take in any other impressions nor have other examples before their eyes to tempt or corrupt them And besides all this in a wonderful providence he so ordered it that all those men that came out of Aegypt except Caleb and Joshua and had observed other Customs and Laws and so might be likely to give beginning to innovation should all dye before they came into the Land of Canaan That by all these means the Laws he gave them might take the deeper root and so remain unalterable to all generations I cannot choose but observe one thing more to this purpose That when our Blessed Saviour had by himself and his Apostles planted his Religion in the World though it was such a Law as sufficiently recommended it self to the minds of men by its own goodness easiness and reasonableness and therefore was likely to be an everlasting Religion or Righteousness as the Prophet Daniel calls it yet for more security it pleased the Divine Providence to restrain the rage of Pagans and Jews for a good while and to give the Christians above sixty years of peace before any considerable persecution broke in upon them that in that warm Sun it might spread its roots and get some considerable strength and footing in the world But it was the will of God that the strength of this new-born Church of England should be early tryed And that it might give proof of its divine extraction it must like Hercules conslict with Serpents in its cradle and undergo a severe persecution the good King Edward the Sixth dying immaturely and Queen Mary succeeding him in the Throne By which means it came to pass that as this Infant-Reformation gave egregious proof of its intrinsick truth and reasonableness many fealing it with their blood so it had this disadvantage that we are all this while representing namely that by reason of this persecution a great number of the Ministers and other members of this Church were driven into other Countreys for refuge and shelter from the storm and there were as it 's easie to imagine tempted with novelty and distracted with variety of Rites and Customs before they were well instructed in the reasons or habituated to the practice of their own And hereupon as it is usually observed of English Travailers brought home with them those foreign fashions the fond singularity of which is still very taking with too many to this day I say thus it came to pass that those that went out from us returned not again to us when they did return in regard that before they were well inured to the English Reformation they became inamoured of the Rites of other Churches not much considering whether they were better so long as they were fresher and newer nor minding that there are oft-times reasons that make one Form necessary to be established in one place or people and not in another when otherwise it is possible they may be both indifferent in themselves but not equally fit to the humour and custome of the people or consonant to the Civil Constitutions nor yet observing that many things were taken up and brought into use in other Churches not upon choice but necessity not because they were absolutely better in themselves but the state of affairs so requiring As for instance where the Reformation had not at first the countenance of the Civil Government there the Reformers were constrained to enter into particular confederations with one another from whence Presbyterian Government seems to have taken its rise I say these Exiled English Protestants not entring into so deep a search into the special causes or occasions of those different Rites and Forms they found in the places whither they fled for succour as to discover whether they were strictly Religious or meerly Political but observing some pretexts of Scripture to be made for them and in process of time during their abode in those parts being used to them and by use confirmed in them they at last when they might with safety return to England again came home laden with these Foreign Commodities and crying them up with a good grace found too many Chapmen for such Novelties Thus as the children of Israel even then when they had Bread from Heaven Angels food longed for the Onions and Garlike of Aegypt remembring how sweet those were to them under their bitter bondage and had upon all occasions and upon every pet or disgust a mind to return thither So these men retained as long as they lived a lingring after those entertainments which they found then very pleasant when other was denyed them and so much the more in that as I said before they received a tincture of these before they had well imbibed or sufficiently understood the reasons of the Church of England And though these men are now dead yet the Childrens Teeth are still set on edge with the sowre Grapes their Fathers have eaten For those persons being considerable for their Zeal against Popery and very much recommended to the esteem of people at their return by the travail and hardship they had underwent for the Protestant profession were easily able with great advantage to communicate their Sentiments and propagate their Prejudices amongst the Members of this Church Here therefore I think we may justly lay the first Scene of the Distractions of this Church A second Cause may be reckoned the bad and incompetent provision for a Learned and Able Ministry in the Corporations and generality of great Parishes in England It is easie to observe that
and confound them those seem mighty-powerful-soul-saving-Preachers Who sees not that this must needs be a mighty disadvantage to the Church of England When Devotions shall be esteemed by their noise and not by their weight and Sermons tryed not by their light but heat But if to all this Truth and Falshood also and that in the most sublime points and which is more Expediency it self must be decided at Vulgar Tribunals so that there shall not be that Doctrine so profound or nice which every man will not take upon him to determine nor that Reason so subtle which the crassest minds shall not pretend to understand nor that Rule or Art of Government which shall not fall under vulgar cognizance if every mans Mind become the Standard and Touchstone of every Truth it is impossible upon the suppositions before laid but there must be dissentions disputes and distractions in such a Church and yet neither the Doctrine Discipline Liturgy nor Ministers thereof be to blame For unless the Reformers of such a Society be no wiser than the Vulgar and the Clergy and Governours and all Learned men have the same sentiments with the people unless I say all could be alike wise or alike weak where all will be alike Judges it is absolutely impossible it should be otherwise Those therefore of the Church of Rome have a cure for this They appropriate all Judgement to the Clergy and deal with the rest of Mankind as Sots and Ideots not permitting them to read the Scriptures in the Vulgar Tongue lest they should grow too wise to be governed nay they will not allow them to be masters of common sense but requre them to believe the most contradictory Propositions and make that an Article of Faith which a man may confute by his Fingers ends This is an admirable way to wean them from their own Understanding to unlearn them Disputes and to exercise them to believe in and obey their Rulers This way makes the people Sheep indeed but silly ones God-wot But the Church of England hath no such Antidote of Disputes and Divisions as this is She makes not her self the Mistris of mens Faith nor imposes upon their Understandings She teacheth that our Saviour hath delivered the Mind of God touching the points of necessary Belief or essential to Salvation fully and plainly to the capacity of every considering man that will use the means and in other lesser matters debatable amongst Christians she allows a judgement of Discretion Only since the Peace of the Church often depends upon such points as Salvation doth not and since in many of those every man is not a competent Judge but must either be in danger of being deceived himself and of troubling others or of necessity must trust some body else wiser than himself She recommends in such a case as the safer way for such private persons to comply with publick Determinations and in so advising she jointly consults the Peace of the Church and the quiet of mens Consciences So all that she challenges is a Reverence not a blind Obedience And if after all this some people will be foolish and proud and contentious she hath no further Remedy than to declare them guilty of Sin and Contumacy and that not sufficing to cast them out of her Communion But when all this is done men may be peevish and wilful and render the State of that Church unhappy whose Constitution is neither guilty of Tyranny nor Remisness Now if it shall be objected to this Discourse That this cause from the consideration of the Folly and Injudiciousness of men is too general and will equally extend to all other Reformed Churches as well as our own and especially that this might have brought forth all the Evil we complain of and impute to it in the former Age as well as now for as much as the generality of people were not much wiser then than now To this I answer in two points 1. If other Reformed Churches have not found the effects of Ignorance and Arrogance joyned together as well as we which doubtless they have done more or less it is not to be ascribed to the happiness of their Constitutions but to the unhappiness of their outward Circumstances Their Poverty Oppression Persecution or being surrounded with common Enemies hath probably prevailed upon them to lay aside or smother their private Opinions and to check their animosities more than our Gratitude to the Almighty for our Ease and Peace and Plenty and Liberty hath done upon us Who knoweth not that the Church of Corinth first needed the severe check of an Apostle for their wantonness and divisions that one was of Paul another of Apollos c. And who can give a more probable account of this their Luxuriancy than from the riches ease plenty and liberty of that City Or who hath not observed that whilest the Primitive Christians were in Adversity surrounded with Enemies and under Pagan persecuting Emperours so long they had one heart and mind they submitted their private phancies and peculiar sentiments to publick safety but the same constituted Churches quickly broke out into Quarrels and Factions as soon as a warm Sun of Prosperity shone upon them We have reason accordingly not to charge our unhappiness upon our Religion nor our troubles upon our Prosperity but to lay them at the right door of our Folly and Weakness 2. That these Evils broke not out in our Church sooner since the Seeds of them were sown long ago is due to the joy and contentment that men generally took at their first emerging out of the darkness and superstitions of the Church of Rome by the Reformation which was proportionable to the deliverance and so great that for a time it suffered them not to be very solicitous about little disputes or scrupulosities Like the people of Greece when the Romans at the Isthmian Games by a publick Herald pronounced them and their Countrey free they forgat the contentions they came together about and used to be infinitely taken with But when the novelty of this great Blessing was over Protestants forgat the great and intolerable burdens they had escaped and then began scrupulously to weigh every petty inconvenience and by the goodness of God not having a publick Enemy to unite them quarrel amongst themselves This therefore may be admitted as one cause of our unhappiness 2. That which I would assign as a second cause I know not well what name to give to it But for want of a better expression I will adventure to say That a great part of this Nation having been leavened with Jewish Superstition or Jewish Traditions hath thereby been indisposed to an uniform reception of and perseverance in the Reformation of Religion held forth by this Church How this sowre leaven should get in amongst us is not very easie to determine Some Stories would incline a man to think that it had been in the veins of this Countrey ever since it first received the
and Christians in the whole world besides It being in no Church or Countrey observed with that punctuality and in that Sabbatical manner as by those persons Whence it 's plain that such observation thereof could neither be derived from Christianity in general nor from Protestantism as such but meerly from a Jewish tincture these persons have received A fifth Instance shall be their Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Which though it be not peculiar to these men yet is so universally and ardently embraced by the men of that way as is scarce to be parallel'd And he that seeks the Source of so odd an Opinion can in my opinion pitch no where more probably than upon the absolute Decree of God to favour the posterity of Abraham for his sake It pleased God to bestow the good Land of Canaan upon the descendents of that good man and he resolved and declared he would do it without respect to their deserts now this is made a sufficient ground to conclude That accordingly as he disposed in this Temporal affair so he will proceed by the same way of Prerogative in determining the Eternal Doom of Men. I will add but one more which is their superstitious observation and interpretation of Prodigies To this a great number of this Party are so addicted that every unusual Accident every new Appearance in the World be it in Heaven above or in the Earth below is presently commented upon and applications made of the errand of it though for the most part with Folly as manifest as is the Uncharitableness yet with Confidence as if it were undoubtedly true that God governed the affairs of the World by as visible a Providence now as he did heretofore in the Land of Judaea and the remembrance of what he did then seems to be the only imaginable account of this conceit of theirs now Many other Instances might be given of this kind but I have made choice of these because they contain the principal Doctrines and most Characteristical Practices of the Non-conformists and these carrying so plainly the marks of Judaism upon them and being no otherwise accountable than upon those Principles I think I said not improperly when I called Judaism the second Cause of our Unhappiness since any man may easily see that such Notions and Principles as these are must needs indispose those that are leavened with them to Conformity to or perseverance in the Church of England 3. But if the weakness of Judgement or bad Instruction only obstructed the prosperity of this Church it were not very difficult to find a Remedy but alas the minds of a great number of men are under such Prejudices as have barricado'd them up and rendred them almost inaccessible and that I reckon as a third Cause of our Distractions Prejudice is so great an evil that it is able to render the best Discourses insignificant the most powerful Arguments and convictive evidence ineffectual this stops mens Ears against the voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely This alone was able to seal up the Eyes of the Gentile World against the Sun of Righteousness when he shone upon them in his brightest glory and to confirm them in their blind Idolatries when the God that made Heaven and Earth gave the fullest discoveries of himself that it was fit for mankind to expect Upon the account of this the Jews rejected that Messias they had so long expected and gloried in before he came though he exactly answered all the Characters of Time Place Lineage Doctrine and Miracles that their own Writings had described him by Nay 't was Prejudice abused the honest minds of the Disciples themselves so that they could not for a long time believe those things Christ Jesus told them from the Scripture must come to pass only because they were against the grain of their Education and were cross to the perswasions they had received in common with the rest of the Jews No wonder then if the Church of England suffer under Prejudice amongst those that have not only seen it stigmatized with the odious marks of Popery and Superstition and had been drawn into a Solemn League and Covenant against it as if it had been an act of the highest Religion to defie and execrate it and so had both their Credits and their Consciences engaged against it But also had lived to see it proscribed for near twenty years by a prevailing Faction Few have that Generosity and strength of mind to bear up against the torrent of times or Confidence enough to oppose the impetuousness of common vogue and prevailing opinion There are not many have the sagacity to discern the true images of things through those thick mists that cunning Politicians cast about them It is very ordinary to take the condemnation of any Person or Party for a sufficient Proof of the Accusation and to think the Indictment proved if the Sentence be past with common consent It was enough both with the Jews and Gentiles against our Saviour that he was condemned as a Malefactor the Ignominy of his Cross was a greater Argument against him with the generality than the excellency of his Doctrine or Evidence of his Miracles was for him This Church was dealt with like the Great Lord Strafford run down by common Fame opprest by Necessity not by Law or Reason and made a Sacrifice to the inraged Multitude The Arguments against it were not weighed but numbered As that Great Lords Impeachment was of Accumulative Treason so was the Churches of Popery there was more in the Conclusion than could be made out by the Premises and in the summ total than in the particulars of which it consisted for though no one point of Popery or Superstition could be proved against it yet it must be so upon the whole This being agreed the cry then is Crucifige destroy it root and branch And now was the Church seemingly dead and as I said before buried too for near twenty years but when by the wonderful Providence of God it was raised again as it was matter of equal Joy and wonder to all such as were not too far under the power of these Prejudices so it could not be expected otherwise but that weak and timerous persons should run from it as from a Ghost or Spectre To all which add That it was the corrupt Interest of some to deceive others into an ill opinion of it partly as being inraged that by the Churches unexpected Revival they lost its Inheritance which they had divided amongst themselves partly being conscious to themselves that by reason of their no more than vulgar abilities they could be fit to fill no extraordinary place in the Church and yet were not able to content themselves with any ordinary one and therefore chose to set up a Party against it and become Leaders of a Faction since they might not be Governours of a Church And when it is come to that pass that by this craft we get our
Livings like the Silver-smiths at Ephesus no wonder if Apostolical Doctrine and Government be cryed down and the Great Diana be cryed up The summ is this Some men were blindly led by their Education others by their Interest a third sort by their Reputation to make good what they had ingaged themselves and others in and these three things are able to form a great Party against the Church 4. The Fourth and Last Cause and I wish it be not the greatest of the Distractions and ill Estate of this Church is the want of true Christian Zeal and of a deep and serious sense of Piety in defect of which hath succeeded that wantonness curiosity novelty scrupulosity and contention we complain of What was it made the Primitive Church so unanimous that it was not crumbled into Parties nor mouldered away in Divisions nor quarrelled about Opinions nor separated one part from another upon occasion of little scruples How came it to pass as I observed in the Introduction to this Discourse that all good men were of one way and all evil men of another that those that travailed to the same City the heavenly Jerusalem kept the same Rode and parted not company It could not be that they should be without different apprehensions for mens Parts were no more alike nor their Educations more equal in those times than now There were then several Rites and Ceremonies that might have afforded matter of scruple if the Christians had been so disposed as well as now and I think both more in number and as lyable to exception as any thing now in use There was then bowing towards the East observation of Lent and other dayes distinction of Garments and innumerable other Observations in the early dayes of Tertullian and yet neither any Scripture brought to prove them nor any such proof thought necessary and yet they were observed without suspicion on one side or objection on the other Harum aliarum ejusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules Scripturarum nullam invenies sed traditio praetenditur auctrix consuetudo conservatrix fides observatrix saith he in his Book De Corona militis St. Austin saith in his time the number and burden of Ceremonies was grown as great as under the Law of Moses and therefore wishes for a Reformation thereof in his Epistles to Januarius yet never thought these things a sufficient ground of Separation from the Church There was then some diversity of Expression in which the Governours and Pastors of several Churches delivered themselves yet did they not dispute themselves hereupon into Parties nor accuse one another of false Doctrine or either Side make the division of the Church the Evidence of its Orthodoxy or the Trophy of its Victory The true reason then of the different Event of the same Causes then and now seems to be this That in those dayes men were sincerely good and devout and set their hearts upon the main the huge Consequence and concern of which easily prevailed with those holy men to overlook their private satisfactions They were intent upon that wherein the Power of Godliness consisted and upon which the Salvation of Souls depended and so all that was secure they were not so superstitiously concerned for Rituals nor so unreasonably fond of Opinions as to play away the Peace of the Church and the Honour of Religion against trifles and meer tricks of wit and fancy They considered that they all had one God one Faith one Baptism one Lord Jesus Christ in which they all agreed and these great matters were able to unite them in lesser They Good men found enough to do to mortifie their Passions to their burdens of Affliction and Persecution to withstand the Temptations of the Devil and the contagion of evil Examples from the world and had not leisure for those little Disputes that now imploy the minds of men and vex the Church They spent their Heat and Zeal another way and so their Spirits were not easily inflammable with every petty Controversie But when men grow cold and indifferent about great things then they become servent about the lesser When they give over to mind a holy Life and heavenly Conversation then they grow great Disputers and mightily scrupulous about a Ceremony When they cease to study their own hearts then they become censorious of other men then they have both the leisure and the confidence to raise Sarmises and Jealousies and to find fault with their Superiours In short then and not till then do the little Appendages of Religion grow great and mighty matters in mens esteem when the Essentials the great and weighty matters are become little and inconsiderable And that this is the Case with us in this Nation is too evident to require further proof and too lamentable a subject for any good Christian to take pleasure in dilating upon I conclude therefore in this Point lyes a great part of the Unhappiness of this Church and Kingdom PART II. Wherein several serious Considerations are propounded tending to perswade all English Protestants to comply with and conform to the Religion and Government of this Church as it is established by Law CHAP. 1. A Reflection upon divers Wayes or Methods for the Prevention and Cure of Church-Divisions HAving in the former Part of this Discourse diligently enquired into and faithfully recited the principal Causes of the discontents with and secession from this Church It would now ill beseem Christian Charity to rest here for God knows neither the Evils nor the Causes afford any pleasant speculation It was a bad state of things at Rome which the Historian reports in these words Nec morbos nec remedia pati possumus That they were come to so ill a pass that they could neither indure their Distempers nor admit of the Remedies But I perswade my self though the condition of our affairs be bad enough yet that it is not so deplorable as to discourage all Endeavours of a cure And in this hope I take the courage to propound the following considerations wherein if I be deceived and miss of my aim I shall notwithstanding have that of Quintilian to comfort my self withal Prohabilis est cupiditas honestorum vel tutioris est audaciae tentare ea quibus est paratior venia It hath not been the single Unhappiness of this Church alone to be molested with Disputes loaden with Objections and dishonoured by Separation Nor can it be hoped that where the business is Religion and the concern Eternal Life that men should incuriously swallow every thing without moving any question or stirring any dispute And therefore all Churches must of necessity more or less have conflicted with the same difficulties we complain of And consequently the disease being so common it cannot be but that many and divers Remedies have been tryed and made use of And out of that store we will in this Chapter make election of such as seem best to fit the condition of the Patient and
her In order to which I will therefore briefly and plainly describe the true notion of Schism In hopes that when men shall understand wherein the guilt of it lyes they will avoid the evil as well as abominate the consequence Schism is a voluntary departure or separation of ones self without just cause given from that Christian Church whereof he was once a member or Schism is a breach of that Communion wherein a man might have continued without sin First I call it a Departure or Separation from the Society of the Church to distinguish it from other sins which though they are breaches of the Laws of our Religion and consequently of the Church yet are not a renunciation of the Society For as there may be a sickly infirm nay an ulcerous member and yet a member of the body So there may be such a person who for his wickedness deserves well to be cast out of the Church as being a scandal and dishonour to it yet neither separating himself nor being cast out of the Society remains still a member of it Now what it is that imports a mans separation of himself or departure from the Church we shall easily understand for it is no more but this When a man shall either expresly declare that he doth renounce such a Society or shall refuse to joyn in the acts and exercises of Religion used by such a Society and to submit to its Authority So he separates that refuses Baptism the Lord Supper or to submit unto the Censures of a Church and sufficiently declares that he owns himself no longer of it Secondly I call it a Voluntary Separation to distinguish sin from punishment or Schism from Excommunication For though the last makes a man no member of a Church yet it is supposed involuntary and he doth not make himself so Thirdly I call it a departure from a particular Church of Christ or from a part of the visible Church to distinguish it from Apostasie which is a casting off of the whole Religion the name and profession of Christianity and not only the particular Society but the Schismatick is he that retaining the Religion in general or at least a pretence of it changes his Society associates himself with or makes up some other body in opposition to that whereof he formerly was Fourthly I add those words whereof he was a member because Schism imports division and making two of that which was but one before And so Turks Pagans Jews cannot be called Schismaticks having never been of the Church These things I suppose are all generally agreed of The only difficulty is in that which I subjoyn in these words an unnecessary separation or without just cause or to separate from that Society wherein I may continue without sin And here we meet with opposition on both sides some defining too strictly and others extending too far the causes of Separation Of the first sort are the Zealots of the Church of Rome who scarcely allow any thing as a sufficient cause of Separation for being conscious of so many and great Corruptions in their Church they know they can scarce allow any thing as a just cause of Separation that will not be in danger to be used against themselves and justifie the recession of all Protestants from them But on the other side some Protestants make the causes of Separation as many and as light as the Jews did of Divorce almost for any matter whatsoever Josephus put away his Wife as himself tells us because she was not mannerly enough another his because he saw a handsomer than she a third his because she drest not his dinner well As these Jews did by their Wives so do many Christians by the Church One likes not her dress another thinks her too costly in her ornaments a third phansies some German beauty or other that he hath seen in his travails and all to make way for new Amours upon very slender pretences repudiate their former choice But as our Saviour when the Case was put found out a middle way betwixt allowing Divorce for no cause at all and for every cause so ought it to be done in this business of Schism To hit this mark therefore I say that then and then only is there just cause of Separation when Perseverance in the Communion of such a Church cannot be without sin that is when she shall impose such Laws and terms of Society as cannot be submitted to without apparent breach of the Divine Law And upon this foundation I doubt not but we shall quit our selves well on both sides that is both justifie our Recession from the Church of Rome and demonstrate the unwarrantableness of this Separation of the Protestants of this Kingdom from the Communion of the Church of England For it 's plain on the one hand that it cannot be sin to separate when it is sin to communicate since no Laws of men can abrogate or dissolve the obligation of the express Laws of God And on the other it is as plain that Schism being so great a sin and of so extream bad consequence that which must acquit me of the guilt of it in my separation can be nothing less than equal danger on the other hand and that when I may persevere without sin it must of necessity be a sin to separate upon inferiour dislikes This methinks is so plain that I wonder any doubt should be admitted of in the case Notwithstanding because I observe some men think to wash their hands of the imputation of Schism upon other terms as namely Although a Church shall not require or impose such conditions of Communion as are expresly sinful yet if she shall require indifferent unnecessary or at most suspected things that in this case there is enough to excuse the person that shall separate from a participation of this sin And also because this opinion bears it self up by the great name of Mr. Hales as his declared judgement in a little Tract of Schism now very much in the hands of men I will therefore for the clearing of this matter say these three things 1. I willingly acknowledge that such a Church as shall studiously or carelesly clog her Communion with unnecessary burdensome and suspected conditions is very highly to blame yet is it neither burdensomness nor every light suspicion of sin but a plain necessity or certainty of sin in complyance that can justifie my Separation forasmuch as I cannot be discharged from a plain duty but by an equal plainness of the sin And for this phrase suspected it is so loose and uncertain that there is no hold of it men will easily suspect what they have no mind to and Suspicion having this priviledge we shall quickly evacute every uneasie duty and instead of guiding our selves by Gods Word and sound reasoning we shall give our selves up to the conduct of Passion Melancholy and Secular Interest 2. If the non-necessity of some of the terms of Communion be a warrant of
separation then there can be no such sin as Schism at all forasmuch as there never was nor probably ever will be such a Church as required nothing of those in her Communion but things strictly and absolutely necessary as I have shewed partly in the Introduction and could easily make appear at large through all Ages And then may the Author of the Tract about Schism securely as he doth somewhat too lightly call it only a Theological Scarcrow 3. It will be manifest to any considering person that some things are necessary to the Constitution and Administration of a particular Church that are not in themselves necessary absolutely considered And of this I will give two instances The first in the Apostles times The abstaining from things strangled and blood was by the Council at Jerusalem adjudged and declared necessary to be observed by the Gentiles in order to an accomodation betwixt them and the Jews of which I shall say more hereafter and yet I suppose scarce any body thinks the observation of that abstinence so enjoyned necessary in it self The second instance shall be Church-Government Whatever disputes there are about the several Forms of it as whether it ought to be Monarchical or Aristocratical Episcopal or Consistorial and whatever zeal for opinion may transport men to say in favour of either of them yet I suppose few or none will affirm that either of these Forms is absolutely necessary for if one be of absolute necessity the other must be absolutely unlawful and not only so but then also those that do not receive that absolutely necessary Form can be no Churches for that Society which is defective in absolutely necessaries can be no Christian Church Notwithstanding it is not only lawful to determine and define this unnecessary point but it is necessary to the constitution of every particular Church that it be defined one way or other I mean so far as concerns that Church for if this be left indifferent in this particular Church as perhaps it is in it self in the general it is manifest there can be no Superiour nor Inferiour no Governour nor governed no Order and consequently a meer Rout and no Church Therefore some things not necessary in themselves not only may but must be defined in a particular Church and consequently it will be no just exception against a Church nor excuse from Schism if we separate from that Communion because such definitions are made in it CHAP. III. Of the nature and importance of those things that are scrupled or objected against in this Church and that they are such as may without sin be sacrificed to Peace and therefore cannot excuse us from sin in separating from the Church upon their account IT is the custome of those that have a mind to quarrel to aggravate and heighten the causes of discontent to the end that the ensuing mischief may not be imputed to the frowardness of their temper but to the greatness of the provocation And passion is such a Magnifying-glass as is able to extend a Mole-hill to a Mountain The way of Peace therefore is to take just measures of things and as upon the account of Truth we must not make the matters of our dispute less than they are so for the sake of both Truth and Peace we ought not to make them greater Wherefore if men would be perswaded to set aside passion and calmly consider the nature and just value of those things that we in this Church are divided upon we should then be so far from seeing reason to perpetuate our distance and animosities that we should on the contrary be seized with wonder and indignation that we have hitherto been imposed upon so far as to take those things for great deformities which upon mature consideration are really nothing worse than Moles which may be upon the most beautiful face To this purpose therefore having in the former Chapter represented the nature of Schism and the guilt and mischiefs attending it I proceed now to shew the unreasonableness of the temptations to it I mean the littleness and small importance of the Objections against this Church and that neither any of them single nor all of them together can countervail the blessing of Peace or the evil of Division In order hereto I will first shew that the causes of Dissensions amongst us are not like those upon which we separated from the Roman Communion 2. That something must be given for Peace by them that will have it 3. That all the scruples and objections against this Church are not too great a price to pay for it 1. Touching the first it is said by some in heat and passion That there is as much cause for secession from this Church now as there was from the Roman in the time of our Ancestors but with no more reason than if the arguments and discourses written against a notorious Tyrant and Usurper should be turned against a good and lawful Prince As will easily be manifest if we consider the just state of the case on either hand We could not continue in the Roman Church upon any better conditions than Nahash propounded to the men of Jabesh Gilead 1 Sam. 11. to put out our right Eyes that we might be fit for her blind devotion We must for the sake of Peace have denyed the Faith renounced our Reason and contradicted our very Senses That Church instead of instructing men in knowledge professes to nurse them up in ignorance in lieu of the Scriptures it gives them Traditions and instead of such things as were from the beginning and the faith once delivered to the Saints it prescribes those things that had their beginning from private interests and secular advantages They make seven Secraments five more than Christ ever intended for such and take away from the people the half of one of those he expresly instituted and enjoyned They teach men to pray to Saints instead of God and to use a Language in their Devotions which he that pronounces understands no more than the Saint he prayes to doth his Needs and Requests Nay they give divine honour to a piece of Bread and must swallow Idolatry in spite of their teeth herein little better than the Aegyptians who worshipt that for a God which they put into their Bellies They have taken away one of the Ten Commandments and have arts of evacuating allthe rest for they elude the necessity of a true and serious Repentance and subvert the principles of holy Life In short they have brought in Pageantry instead of Piety and Devotion effaced the true lineaments of Christianity and instead thereof recommended and obtruded upon the world the dictates of Ambition the artifices of Gain and a colluvies of almost all the Superstitions Errors and Corruptions of former Ages and this must be received and swallowed by all those that will continue in that Communion These things could not be submitted to without grievous Sin and manifest danger of Damnation therefore
very readily hearkened to But as they past a Doom upon any one he approves the Sentence but before the execution perswades them to bethink themselves of another and better man to be in his Room since a Senate they could not be without But here the business stuck as he had foreseen it would the people who agreed unanimously against the old Senator could by no means accord who should succeed one named this person and another that but whosoever was named by one party was rejected by another that in conclusion as great a pique as they had conceived against the old Senate for want of agreement in better men to fill their places they were constrained to continue them in I only make this application of the Story That it is easie and obvious to find fault with things present but not so to find better for the future And till that can be done 't is neither just to call any thing evil that is the best of its kind nor done like wise men to quarrel with a Church for some infirmities which we know the worst of by long experience lest thereby we come to have either none at all or such an one as may give us cause sadly to repent our choice CHAP. V. That God layes very little stress upon Circumstantials in Religion TO make that which we have hitherto discoursed the more clear and convictive and to ease the minds of men of their scrupulosities and superstitious fears let it be considered in the next place That even then when God Almighty did with the most punctuality prescribe the Ceremonies and Circumstantials of Religion he never laid such stress upon them but that so long as the main of Religion was provided for and the substance of his Institutions observed Alterations might be and were made in those lesser matters without his offence And if this be made appear it will tend to beget in men better notions of God and better measures of Religion as well as dispose them to Conformity to the Church of England For they will have no reason to think of God as a captious Deity that watches advantages against his Creatures nor make Religion a piece of nice scrupulosity and consequently will neither swallow Camels nor strain at Gnats but serve God with the generosity of a free and a comfortable mind Now to this purpose it will not be unuseful to take notice of a distinction mentioned by Maimonides That the Jews acknowledge some things in their Law to be primae intentionis and some things secundae That there were some things God required for themselves as being intrinsecally good and that other things were only required for the sake of and in order to the former The first kind that were essentially good were also absolutely necessary and never could be otherwise such as we call moral Duties The latter kind were of so indifferent a nature as that not only they might not have been commanded but also having been commanded they may in some cases not be a Duty An instance whereof though the Jews were a great while before they understood it and soundly smarted for their Ignorance is that Maxim they have now generally received Periculum vitae dissolvit Sabbatum But the fullest instance of the kind is that which is remembred by Mr. Selden in his Book de jure Naturali Gentium lib. 2. cap. 10. That in case of sickness a Jew might not only eat such meats as were otherwise forbidden but say they for the recovery of his health or avoidance of any great danger he might break any Precept save only those Three great ones against Idolatry Murder and Incest But these things come not home to my purpose only I note them to shew that that superstitious people had some general notice that God did not so precisely animadvert in little matters so the great were minded That which I choose to insist upon for the evidencing of this Observation is the Passeover which was a great Sacrament instituted by God himself upon weighty reasons made a Statute for ever throughout their generations and the soul that observed it not was to be cut off from among his people Exod. 12. And in the eleventh verse of that Chapter the most minute circumstances are defined amongst other that they should eat the Passeover with staves in their hands shoos on their feet and their loins girt by which expressions is plainly intimated and accordingly they understood and practised that they should eat it in the posture of standing Nevertheless it is well known that when they were come into the Land of Canaan to setled habitations they eat it sitting or lying according to the usual custome of feasting in those Countreys And this change continued all along till the times of our Saviour without any reproof from God and our Saviour himself conforms to them herein and in the same posture eats the Passeover with his Disciples Now this is the rather observable because whenas the posture enjoyned by God was symbolical of the haste in which they went out of Aegypt They in the change aforesaid instituted a Ceremony which was symbolical too but quite of another matter namely of the rest and peace God had now given them in the good Land of Canaan And all this alteration made upon prudential considerations and the reason of the thing without any warrant from God for their direction or check for the change Let us take another Instance Though God had so carefully described the Circumstances of the Temple-worship as I have shewed before and the especial reasons of so doing yet we find David distributing the Priests into Orders for the conveniency of their Ministration which might have been called an Innovation in Religion but besides that he institutes instrumental Musick to be used in the Worship of God without any Commission from God that appears And yet this novelty also was so far from incurring any reprehension that it was thenceforward constantly retained and made use of I might for the fuller Evidence of this notion observe That though God had with great solemnity instituted Sacrifices as the means of propitiating his Divine Majesty towards sinful men and had with great accuracy prescribed the Laws thereof yet he puts a great slight upon all of that nature as a thing he regarded not in comparison with the substantial points of Virtue and Obedience Particularly Psal 50. v. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices c. v. 14. Offer to God the sacrifices of righteousness As if he had said Let me have these latter and I shall not much complain for defect of the former But especially Micah 6. 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or ten thousands of rivers of Oyl c. but he hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God For a full explication of all which and
a great hand in this mischief also That not only the prodigious Faith but the monstrous Life of some great pretenders to Religion hath made men scorn and abhorr the very notion of it When not only mens ridiculous Follies but also their Vices their Pride and Passion and Rancour shall be father'd upon the Spirit of God as we know when and where such things have been done when men shall seek God for all the Villanies they are resolved to commit when they make long Prayers to devour Widows houses and proclaim a Fast that they may kill and take possession when Religion shall be prostituted to all bad designs and in nomine Domini incipit omne malum when I say the most specious Profession is a cloke for the vilest Knavery It cannot be much wondered if such men as I described before be inclined by these things to think there is no reality in any of the discourses of God and Religion For as if a man were to observe whether the Sun was risen upon the Hemisphere he would direct his eyes to the tops of Mountains expecting to see him displaying his beams first upon them that are nearest Heaven So a man would think if there were any such thing as Religion and a sense of Divinity amongst men it should be found amongst those that have alwayes God in their mouths and such a Garb of Religion upon them But if he find himself disappointed here and that these men that pretend so high have as great Sensualities Passions Covetousness Malice as other men he will despair of finding it any where and conclude with Brutus O virtus quaesivi te ut rem sed tantùm merum nomen es that there is no such thing at all 3. To the aforesaid Causes we may well add the perpetual Janglings and Disputes between Professors of Religion as not only making Religion unlovely but even calling it wholly into question When so many shall tell us there is such a place and state as Heaven and a World to come but every one tells us a several way thither witty men who know that all cannot be true but all may be false think it not comporting with their discretion to take the pains of the journey till the Guides shall be agreed of the way The disagreement of the two rank Elders in their testimony against Susannah's chastity whilest one said the fault was done under one kind of Tree and the other under another discovered her Innocency and their Hypocrisie It is true indeed there may and must be diversities of apprehensions in several points of Christianity whilest men are of different capacities and this need not nor if things be modestly carryed will give any just advantage to the Atheist But when every private opinion is made necessary to salvation and men pronounce damnation against one another upon every little diversity when they make as many Religions as there are Opinions and as many Wayes to Heaven as there are Notions amongst men it cannot be hoped but that the cold Sceptick should be incouraged in his Neutrality 4. But if to all these we consider with what rancour and malice the several Parties prosecute one another what odious and defamatory Libels and bitter Invectives they write one against another wherein all the secret follies of each party are blazed and published all the errors aggravated all the Opinions racked to confess blasphemy in their owners and defenders one party said to make God a Tyrant the other to deny his Wisdom or Soveraignty the one side accused of Idolatry the other of Rebellion he I say that considers how usual all this is and how ready all those that have no good mind to Religion are to catch up the darts that each of the parties cast at each other and make use of them against both and with what seeming Reason they conclude that the Confession of the Parties against each other and their mutual Impeachments of each other should argue the guilt of both and observes that all the defamatory Sermons and Libels that men write in heat and passion against each other wherein they charge folly blasphemy and nonsense upon each other reciprocally at last rebound or are retorted upon the wheel of Religion cannot be altogether to seek of the rise of the Atheism of this Age. But whether these be the principal causes of the great appearance which Atheism makes in this Age above the proportion of other times or whether there be other of a more latent and malignant influence I shall not further enquire at present since it is manifest that the matter of Fact is true and that being so the danger to Religion cannot be obscure We have reason therefore better to govern our passions and lay aside our animosities for the future and to unite our forces in an uniform order of Religion against this common enemy lest the gravity and piety of this Nation end in Buffoonry and our best heat and spirits being spent upon one another or against our Governours the mortal symptome of a cold clammy stupid Atheism succeed 2. Popery is another Hannibal ad portas an enemy that watches but till our Divisions shall open the Gates to him I hope I need not exaggerate the formidableness of Popery to those that remember either eighteen thousand souls dispatcht out of the World by the hands of the common Hangman in about three years time in the Low Countreyes under the Government of the Duke of Alva or the French Massacre or Queen Maries Reign in England or the Gunpowder Treason There was a clause in our Litany in Henry the Eighths and Edward the Sixths time From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and his detestable enormities Good Lord deliver us and upon what reasons soever it was since left out it was not certainly because either their Errors are less enormous or their Spirits less cruel but God forbid that because they at present hide their Teeth we should think they cannot or will not bite for if we should be so good natur'd as to warm this Snake in our bosomes that now pretends to have neither power nor will to hurt us I doubt we should quickly find it to resume its malice and poison together with its warmth and strength If any one shall be so hardy as to apprehend there is no danger of its return in this Nation I pray God his foresight be as great as his courage but he that considers the following Circumstances will think it adviseable not to be over secure For 1. It is not with this party as with any other Sect whatsoever these have a Forreign Head and great interests abroad the Pope and all the Popish Princes to unite to direct to animate and imploy them which must needs render them very dangerous to any State that is inclined to middle counsels that is that doth not either effectually please them or effectually disable them And upon this account the Turkish Sultan who hath scarcely any
under no Government whatsoever but must be either Outlaws or absolute Princes To the end I say that we may prevail with them to deny themselves in some things for the publick good we should do well to give them example in our own self-denyal and abridging our own liberty in condescension to them in such things as are not the matter of Law And that we will not outrun the Laws to contradict and vex them but comply with them in what we may without sin This is that Charity and avoiding Scandal the Apostle so earnestly recommends of which I have spoken in the Considerations And the consequence is plain If it be their duty to restrain themselves in the use of that Liberty God hath left them in complyance with the Laws and Magistrate and for the sake of publick Peace and Order then it is our duty to restrain our selves in the use of that Liberty the Laws of God and Man have left us for the sake of the same Peace and in Charity to our Brethren Besides that nothing works upon mens ingenuity like Cession and Yielding and peculiarly with Englishmen as I have heretofore observed 3. That we use no provocation or exasperation towards Dissenters nor countenance those inconsiderable persons that have no other way to shew their Zeal to the Church but by reviling and vexing those that differ from it It were good all Governours of the Church did and I hope they do imitate Memnon the General for Darius against Alexander who when he found one of his Souldiers instead of Darts casting Scoffs at the Enemy tells him You are not entertained ut maledicas sed ut pugnes For besides that this carriage where ever it is is but counted a strong argument of a weak Cause it stirs up the mud of mens passions clouds their understandings and by representing men worse than they are tempts them to be worse than they would be And if I see I shall be alwayes nosed with my former Ignorance and folly I am deprived of one of the greatest encouragements to forsake it 4. Though I have as I hope sufficiently proved in the foregoing Discourse that there is no absolute necessity of making any abatement of the Legal terms of Communion with this Church forasmuch as nothing is required or imposed by the Constitution thereof but what may be submitted to without in And therefore I will not be guilty of the presumption to prescribe to my Superiours either one way or other in that matter Yet I humbly suggest that if any such thing shall be thought fit to be done out of condescension to the Non-conformists and to gain them to the Church it may be done freely and spontaneously nor as extorted either by their importunity or the necessity of affairs For whatsoever is gotten the latter way is not accounted yielded but won nec amicos parat nec inimicos tollit it passes no obligation upon men but rather incourages their importunity and confirms their obstinacy And there is nothing that wise men do or ought to resent more than the miscarriage of their favours since thereby they lose not only what they grant but their reputation too The Council of Trent therefore would hearken to no terms nor Propositions on the behalf of the Protestants lest they should by some few drops of Concession increase their thirst of more But had they had as much of the innocency of the Dove as of the subtilty of the Serpent or been as sincere as they were wise in their generation they should have prevented all importunities by a liberal Grant of what was fit and just and by such an act of Goodness and Charity they might either have wrought upon the ingenuity and moderated the heat of the other Party or at least having done what became them they should then have had good ground peremptorily to have refused whatsoever should have been arrogantly demanded But they as I have said wisely enough in their way considering that if they once came to acknowledge any thing due to the Protestants must be forced upon the same terms to yield them more than they were willing to part with and indeed little less than the whole resolved therefore to yield nothing at all But as the case of our Church is not like theirs so there is no necessity we should make use of the same Politicks for where there is nothing sinful in the Constitution nothing can be required to be abated but upon the terms of Prudence and Compassion and if it shall happen that those Arguments be thought fit to be heard it is great pitty in that case that the resolution should not be so carried as that it may be evident to all that those causes only had influence upon the effect If these things be considered by those that favour the Church and the foregoing Considerations be impartially weighed by the Protestant Dissenters from it I for my part shall conceive good hope that the Clergy of England shall recover its antient and due Veneration our Churches be better filled than the Conventicles a blessed Symphony in our publick Prayers and an Universal Peace Love and Good-will be restored in this divided and distracted Church and Nation Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. FINIS Lib. 3. 26. cap. de false sap Orat. 1. Rom. 1. 8. Acts 8. 4. Mr. Calv. Ep. 118 119. 1 Cor. 3. 4. De unitati Eccles