over to a new Party Dissention it self amongst Protestants weakneth their Interest and that which weakens one side strengthens another And many men entangled in Controversy and wearied with endless wrangling are too apt for mere ease and quiet sake to cast themselves in servile manner into the Arms of pretended Infallibility Our Dissentions have already introduced too much of that which is the very spirit of Iesuitism the doing of Evil that pretended Good may come of it the serving of a Cause by any means whether they be just or unjust Some Dissenters do accidently prepare the way for Romish Religion by running into an other extream upon pretence of avoiding Popery by decrying the Church of England as Antichristian and Popish and by condemning that as Popish which is Christian and decent As Episcopacy Liturgy Observation of the Nativity of Christ and other Festivals Reverence of bodily Gesture particularly in receiving the Holy Communion Preservation of places and things set apart for Holy uses with reverend care By this means they bring Popery into Reputation Men will be apt to say if such a Body as the Church of England be Popish it is fit we set down and consider of it for surely they are not so inclined without weighty Reasons If the Clergy of it be inclined to that Religion the Introduction of which together with great numbers of the Popish-Clergy will diminish their preferment it must be the Power of Truth which moveth them against their worldly Interest They will continue their Argument and say further if such good things as these abovementioned be Romish and it be lawful to judge of the whole by the parts of it which are before us surely that which is Popish is also Primitive and Evangelical That which we have examin'd is good and that which we have not may probably be of the same kind Secondly the History of our late Revolutions sheweth that Popery will not be smother'd in the Ruines of the Church of England but rather be advanced upon them It made great Progress in the late Times insomuch that the Dissenters do remove the Odium of the late King 's execrable Murther from themselves and lay it upon the Iesuites thereby tacitly acknowledging that they had so great a power over some of them as to make them to become their Instruments for the cutting of the Lord 's Anointed For if they will not allow Cromwell and Ireton and some others of that Order to have been Dissenters properly so called yet certainly they must not deny that Name to Mr. Peters Mr. Iohn Goodwin and many like to them who appeared publickly in that very black and insolent wickedness How far it is true that the Jesuits influenc'd those Counsels I do not now examine nor do's my Talent lie in Mysteries of State But that in the late Revolutions Popery was not rooted out no Man can remain ignorant who is of competent Age and has not perfectly lost the use of his memory though he has made the most negligent Observations Robert Mentit de Salmonet a Scotchman and a Secular Priest in actual exercise of Communion with the Church of Rome hath publickly taken notice of the many Priests slain at Edge-Hill and of two Companies of Walloons and other Catholicks as he is pleased to style them in the Service of the States It hath been commonly said that Gifford the Jesuite appeared openly in the Year 47 amongst the Agitators and that his Pen was used in the Paper drawn up at a Committee in the Army and call'd the Agreement of the People K. Charles the Martyr speaketh of such things as notorious in one of his printed Declarations All Men know said he the great number of Papists which serve in their Army Commanders and others In the Year 49 Those in the House were acquainted with divers Papers taken in a French Man's Trunk at Rye discovering a Popish Design to be set on foot in England with Commissions from the Bishop of Chalcedon by Authority of the Church of Rome to Popish Priests and others for settling the Discipline of the Romish Church in England and Scotland Mr. Edwards reports from Mr. Mills a Common-Council-man who was so informed by a knowing Papist that the Romanists did generally shelter themselves under the Vizor of Independency It is certain that a College of Jesuits was established at Come in the Year 52. And in a Paper found there mention was made of 155 reconcil'd that year to the Church of Rome Oliver himself used these words in a Declaration publish'd by the Advice of his Council It is not only Commonly observed but there remains with Us somewhat of Proof that Iesuites have been found among some discontented Parties in this Nation who are observed to quarrel and fall out with every Form or Administration in the Church or State Dr. Bayly the Romanist openly courted Oliver as the present hopes of Rome and with a Flattery as gross as the Jingle was ridiculous call'd him Oliva Vera And one of his Physitians hath said of him that he was once negotiating with the Romanists for Toleration but brake off the bargain partly because they came not up to his price and partly because he feared it would be offensive to the People It is also publickly told us that an Agreement was made in 49 even with Owen ô Neal that bloody Romanist and that he in pursuance of the Interest of the State so called raised the Siege of London-derry A great door was opened to Romish Emissaries when the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were by publick Order taken away For they were Tests of Romanism Likewise the Doctrine of the unlawfulness of an Oath revived in those days by Roger Williams Samuel Gorton and others helped equivocating Papists to an evasion as I fear it may do at this day among the Quakers So we may be induced to believe by comparing present with former Transactions For we are infomed that in the Reign of King Iames Thomas Newton pretended to have had a Vision of the Virgin Mary who said to him Newton See thou do not take the Oath of Allegiance And being of this publickly examined at the Commission-Table and asked how he knew it to be the Virgin Mary which appeared He answer'd I knew it was she for she appeared unto me in the form of her Assumption It was the Church of England which in our late Troubles principally fortify'd and entrench'd the true Protestant Religion against the Assaults of Rome This Church was still in being though in Adversity She had strong Vitals and did not die notwithstanding there was some Distemper in her Estate There was still a Constitution where Primitive order and decencie might be found and in which Men of Sobriety might be fixed And great numbers of the Church-men by their constant adherence to their Principles under publick contempt and heavy pressure gained daily on the People and convinced
Atheists have sometimes since the King's Return been much used in the Cause of our Dissenters Now if well meaning zeal could not establish the Discipline it is not likely to be promoted much less settled by the help of such hands of which the outsides are not washed by so much as an External form of Godliness The Second Branch of the first End of Dissenters seems more improbable then the first viz. The settling themselves as several distinct Parties giving undisturbed Toleration to each other This seems not probable upon many accounts First Some Dissenters believe some of the Parties to be incapable of Forbearance as maintaining Principles destructive of Christian Faith and Piety This Opinion they still have for instance sake of Antinomians Quakers and Muggletonians And they formerly declamed against the Toleration of divers others They publish'd here by Authority so called an Act of the Assembly at Edinburgh Against Erastians Independents and Liberty of Conscience bearing as they speak their publick Testimony against them not only as contrary to sound Doctrine but as more special Letts and Hinderances as well to the Scottish received Doctrine Discipline and Government as to the Work of Reformation and Uniformity in England and Ireland The Ministers of the Province within the County Palatine of Lancaster in their Harmonious Consent with the Ministers of the Province of London publish'd their Judgments in these zealous Words A Toleration would be a putting of a Sword into a Mad-man's hand An appointing a City of Refuge in Mens Consciences for the Devil to fly to A proclaiming Liberty to the Wolves to come into Christ's Fold to prey upon his Lambs A Toleration of Soul-murther the greatest murther of all others and for the establishing whereof damned Souls in Hell would accurse Men on Earth Neither would it be to provide for tender Consciences but to take away all Conscience If error be not forcibly kept under it will be Superior It seems they were not then of the later Perswasion of the Protector who said concerning the People of several Judgments in this Land That they were All the Flock of Christ and the Lambs of Christ though perhaps under many unruly Passions and Troubles of Spirit whereby they gave disquiet to themselves and others And that they were not so to God as to us Again There is no firmness or social influence in the nature of this Union It is the Union of a multitude who meet and disperse at pleasure and he who proposeth this way as the means to knit Men into Christian Communion is like a Projector who should design the keeping of the stones together in the strength of a firm and lasting House by for bearing the use of Cement The Union that lasteth is that of the Concord of Members in an Uniform Body Moreover It is to be consider'd that there are no Parties in this or any other Nation so exactly poised that they have equal Numbers and Interests There is always one of them which over-ballanceth the rest And one of the several ways must always be favoured as the Religion of the State And it is natural for the strongest side to attempt the subduing of the weaker And though this be not soon effected yet 'till one side getteth the mastery the Parties remain not as distinct Bodies settled in peace within themselves and towards each other but as Convulsions in the common body of the State Some think this Inclination to the swallowing up of all other Parties to be found almost only in the Romish Church But there is something of it to be discerned I will not say in all Churches seeing I well understand the good Temper of our own which suffered Bonner himself to live yet in all Factions and Parties though the inequality of Power makes it not seem to be alike in all of them The Catt hath the same inward Parts with the Lyon though they differ much in size And some such likeness they will find who dissect humane nature and Bodies civil There is this Disposition in Men whether they be the Politick or the Conscientious The External practice of all Parties is answerable to this inward Disposition There is this inward Disposition in men who espouse any Faction whether their Ends be designs of State or of Religion Parties who are not otherwise then in shew concerned for Religion will perpetually covet Power after Power And Parties who are serious and Conscientious in their way whatsoever it is will not remain in an indifference of tempers towards thosewho treadin contrary Paths and with whom they do not maintain Communion For therefore they with draw from them because they believe Communion with them to be unlawful Otherwise they have no Judgment in the price of Peace and Unity if they willingly part with it when they may without sin enjoy it and if they esteem their way sinful and believe those persons who remain without their pale to be so gone astray as without Repentance to be eternally lost Charity it self will urge them to use all means probable towards the reducing of them And they will be apt to think that the suffering of them in their Wandrings declares them to be contented with their Perdition The External Practice of all Parties do's shew plainly what is their inward Disposition All would do what is good in their own eyes but I do not perceive that any are willing to let others do so Where there is Power there is little Forbearance And the same men as their Conditions alter speak of Mercy or Iustice. Amongst those of the Party of Donatus whose Schism opened so dangerous a Wound in the Churches of Africa all pleaded earnestly for Forbearance whilst their Power was in its Minority Yet S. Austin remindeth one of them of a Practice contrary to their Profession whilst they turn'd against the Maximianists the edge of the Theodosian Laws and abus'd the Power which they had gotten under Iulian in oppressing as far as in them lay the Catholick Christians Amongst those of the Protestant Perswasion the Heads of the Discipline were plainly unwilling that any should have leave to make a separation from their body And one of them with a mixture of Grief and Expostulation thus discoursed before the Commons The Famous City of London is become an Amsterdam Separation from Our Churches is countenanc'd Toleration is cried up Authority lieth asleep Every one would have Power to rowse upit self and maintain his Cause And indeed it is and has been too often in Religion as it is and was in Philosophy Where the divers Sects do not contend meerly for the enlarging the bounds of Philosophical Arts in a sincere and solid inquiry but for the Translating the Empire of Opinion and settling it upon themselves The same men who pleaded for Forbearance in this Church and remov'd themselves into New-England as by themselves was said for the Liberty of thier Conscience or Persuasion when once they
those whom they had helped to Power were turning it against them and breaking them to pieces by dashing Independency against them Aspiring Men make fair Promises till they have gained their point but when that is once secured they take other Measures They say that Maximilian for the gaining of Votes in order to the Empire used secret Preachings to please the Protestant Princes the Elector Palatine the Dukes of Saxony and Brandenburgh and went openly to Mass to please the Popish Bishops of Mentzs Triers and Collein Also the claims of the worldly increase with their Power And for illustration-sake when the House being garbell'd had much less right but more force the Army as yet agreeing with them and the good King being in their hands then they gave to the Declarations of their Pleasure the Title not as before of Ordinances but of Acts of Parliament Oliver likewise declared plainly That there was as much need to keep the Cause by Power as to get it And being potent he entred the House and mock'd at his Masters and commanded with insolent disdain that That Bawble meaning the Mace of the Speaker should be taken away Men may intend well but using the help of the illegal secular Arm they can never secure what they propose but frequently render that which was well settled much worse by their unhinging of it By such means it comes to pass that the Civil State is embroyl'd and Religion sensibly decays â—â—stead of growing towards perfection where publick order is interrupted and Men gain a Liberty which they know not how to use Secondly It appeareth by the History of our late Revolutions which began with pretence of a more pure Religion that our Dissentions occasion'd great Corruptions both in Faith and manners Then the War was Preached up as the Christian Cause And one of the City-Soldiers mortally wounded at Newberry-fight was applauded in an Epistle to the Houses as one whose Voice was more then humane when he cryed out O that I had another Life to loose for Iesus Christ. Then this Doctrine so very immoral and unchristian was by some Preached and by great numbers embrac'd The Lord hath no more to lay to the charge of an Elect Person yet in the heighth of Iniquity and the excess of Riot and committing all the Abominations that can be committed then he hath to lay to the charge of a Saint Triumphant in Glory Then certain Soldiers enter'd a Church with five Lights as Emblems of five things thought fit to be extinguish'd viz. The Lord's-day Tythes Ministers Magistrates the Bible Then by a publick Intelligencer who called himself Mercurius Britanicus the Lord Primate Usher himself was reproach'd as an Old Doting Apostating Bishop Instances are endless but what need have we of further Witnesses then the Lords and Commons and the Ministers of the Province of London whose Complaints and Acknowledgments are here subjoyned The Lords and Commons in one of their Ordinances use these words We have thought fit left we partake in other Mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their Plagues to set forth this our deep sence of the great dishonour of God and perillous condition that this Kingdom is in through the abominable Blasphemies and damnable Heresies vented and spread abroad therein tending to the Subversion of the Faith contempt of the Ministry and Ordinance of Jesus Christ. The Ministers made a like acknowledgment saying Instead of extirpating Heresie Schism Profaness we have such an impudent and general inundation of all these evils that Multitudes are not asham'd to press and plead for publick formal and universal Toleration And again We the Ministers of Iesus Christ do hereby testify to all our Flocks to all the Kingdom and to all the Reformed Churches as our great dislike of Prelacy Erastianism Brownism and Independency so our utter abhorrence of Anti-Scripturism Popery Arianism Socinianism Arminianism Antinomianism Anabaptism Libertinism and Familism with all such like now too rise among us Thirdly some Dissenters by the Purity of Religion mean agreeableness of Doctrine Discipline and Life to the dispensation of the New Testament and a removal of humane Inventions and thus far the Notion is true but with reference to our Church it is an unwarrantable Reflexion For it hath but one Principal Rule and that is the Holy Scripture and Subordinate rules in pursuance of the general Canons in Holy Writ are not to be called in our Church any more then in the pure and Primitive Christian Church whose Pattern it follows humane Imaginations but rules of Ecclesiastical Wisdom and Discretion But there are others among the Dissenters who by the Purity of Religion mean a simplicity as oppos'd to composition and not to such mixtures as corrupt the Circumstances or parts of Worship which in themselves are pure Quakers and some others believe their way the purer because they have taken out of it Sacraments and External Forms of Worship and endeavoured as they phrase it to bring the Peoples minds out of all Visibles By equal reason the Papists may say their Eucharist is more pure then that of the Protestants because they have taken the Cup from it But that which maketh a pure Church is like that which maketh a pure Medicine not the sewness of the Ingredients but the good quality of them how many soever they be and the aptness of their Nature for the procuring of Health Men who have this false Notion of the purity of Religion distill it till it evaporates and all that is left is a dead and corrupt Sediment And here I have judged the following words of Sir Walter Rauleigh not unfit to be by me transcribed and considered by all The Reverend Care which Moses had in all that belong'd even to the outward and least parts of the Tabernacle Ark and Sanctury is now so forgotten and cast away in this Superfine Age by those of the Family by the Anabaptist Brownist and other Sectaries as all cost and care bestow'd and had of the Church wherein God is to be served and worshipped is accounted a kind of Popery and as proceeding from an Idolatrous Disposition Insomuch as time would soon bring to pass if it were not resisted that God would be turned out of Churches into Barnes and from thence again into the Fields and Mountains and under the Hedges and the Officers of the Ministry robbed of all Dignity and Respect be as contemptible as these places all Order Discipline and Church-Government left to newness of Opinion and Men's Fancies Yea and soon after as many kinds of Religions would spring up as there are Parish-Churches within England Every Contentious and ignorant person clothing his Fancy with the Spirit of God and his Imagination with the gift of Revelation insomuch as when the truth which is but One shall appear to the simple multitude no less variable then contrary to it self the Faith of Men will soon after dye