I know not all their demands yet this I know that some things that they do demand would be so far from making us better that they would over-turn not only the Church of England but all the Churches in the world Their main grievance you know is at the three Ceremonies and that upon this Principle because they are unscriptural Symbols so that their quarrel against them would not be superseded by their bare removal in that there would remain behind other significant Ceremonies as unscriptural as they and by consequence as liable to the same exception And therefore it is to no purpose to condescend to any of their particular scruples unless we could withal remove the Principle upon which they are bottom'd But that is made plainly impossible from the very nature of things seeing there are as I have often told you but am forced too often to rub up your dulness because you have no list to understand no Ceremonies determined in the Scriptures saving only the two Sacraments and seeing it is impossible to perform any Divine Service at all without some other exteriour Solemnities Let them choose what they please they cannot avoid falling under the same exception and the very simplicity that they seem so much to affect can plead as little precedent from the word of God as any custome or fashion whatsoever And it is too notorious and has been too often told them how they themselves continually practise against their own principle in all the circumstances peculiar to their own way of worship and if they do not apply it as well against themselves as the Church of England it is only because they are humoursom as well as unreasonable At least this exception is so infinitely nice and peevish that though it can yet it never will be satisfied What trains and labyrinths of distinctions are they forced to plant only to defend their Argument when they should be proving it Some Ceremonies are natural some customary some catholique some topical some lawful and some unlawful that are all but idle stories of their own devising rather to excuse than justifie their pretence And what Master of them has skill or authority enough to range all Ceremonies under their proper heads and when he has done it what ground has he to determine the lawfulness of these and the immorality of those With innumerable more such curious nothings as had never been so much as thought of had not these men been so proud and stubborn as to think that when they had once started an absurdity they were obliged to stand to it But their discourses upon this Argument are in your judgement so frivolous that though that is none of the deepest nor your self the most modest man in the world yet you are ashamed to own them For when you come to that part of the Controversie you positively disclaim and defie their master-objection as too ridiculous in it self and below the wit and wisdom of the men that make it and have not ventured to justifie any thing in that whole matter beside the nipping Quotation out of the 5th Epistle to Marcellinus So great a Cast is it of your arrogance to tell us that you know of no enmity the Non-conformists have to the Church it self but what it was in her power alwayes to have remedied and so it is still When it is so little in our Power to remedy their Grievances that it is not in the power of nature and though we change and reform as much as they would have us and as often as they have done themselves it will do nothing towards removing their enmity if they have any other grounds for it beside humour and peevishness and if they have not I am sure it is least of all in our Power to remedy that We may convince them but we can never make them good-natured unless they will give their minds to it And whereas you upbraid us so perpetually with the Conference of Worcester house as if His Majesties Commissioners had cunningly and revengefully obstructed the Accommodation when the Abatements demanded by the Non-conformists were so reasonable and might so easily have been complyed with Do you at all know what were the abatements they demanded to bring them off with Conscience To let you see your considence I tell you they demanded none at all but the question being solemnly put to them and that as I am told in his Majesties presence whether they knew of any thing in the Liturgy with which they could not comply without sin they all declared their own satisfaction but only desired some abatements for the ease of weak Brethen or rather as you tell us bluntly to bring themselves off with some little reputation For they as well as all the rest of mankind are men for their own ends too What an Apology is here that these men who had trinkled the whole Nation into a Covenant against Prelacy and Antichrist who had drawn vast numbers of well-meaning People into Rebellion against the best Prince that ever wielded English Scepter who had contributed to involve their Native Countrey in a bloody war and brought upon it such an heap of calamities as we all know succeeded one upon the neck of another and all this under pretence of the necessity of Reformation And yet now when they were convinced in their own Consciences that they had so horribly abused both themselves and the people and had thrown away the lives of an hundred thousand men for nothing instead of condescending to any acknowledgement of their errour and doing something towards preventing the like mischiefs for the time to come they on the contrary resolve to persist in their Schism and opposition to the Church unless she will condescend to them in some unreasonable demands and that too only for fashion sake to salve their Reputation i. e. to make the people believe that there was some reason for all the disorders of the Rebellion and to leave it upon Record to Posterity that the Church at last saw it reasonable if not necessary to condescend to their demands and to redress their Grievances Do you think they had not come off with much more Reputation if they had honestly confess'd their mistake and endeavour'd to disabuse the people and shewn the uprightness of their intentions by the frankness of their Repentance than thus openly and impudently to prevaricate with the World by declaring that though they knew no sufficient ground for Separation yet because separated they were and that into Rebellion as well as Schism they must keep their party together and secure them for ever returning to the peaceable Communion of the Church unless something by all means be first done to bring them off with Reputation that the people might not have any cause to abate the great opinion they had either of their wit or their honesty Surely a right modest and tender-hearted petition that no terms of Peace and accommodation may be
despise the Compassion of God or of mercy towards them who trample on the Blood of Christ Nay God forbid we hope to rejoice in seeing all that Vengeance and Indignation that is in the right hand of God poured out unto Eternity upon our Souls By this you may perceive what J. O. means by talking of the day of Judgment when he is angry and that he then designs for himself no small Devils Office Oh! the day of Judgment how does it allay all Maladies and Discontents Then shall it be one part of his Eternal Bliss to behold his own and the Lord Christs Enemies lodged in Eternal Flames The Brimstone of the damned shall shed a perfume up into his Heaven and their shrieks and howlings shall be as musical to him as the Hallelujahs of blessed Spirits Not that he is in the least unwilling to forgive all affronts and unkindnesses but that God never will Ay that is the comfort of their Spite and Malice They snatch not the Sword out of his hand only because they hope the strokes of an Almighty Arm will light heavier than theirs They put out their Revenge to Interest and are content to stay a little for it till hereafter because then they expect to have it payed in with infinite Emprovements and hope to rejoyce in seeing all that Vengeance and Indignation that is in the right hand of God poured out unto Eternity upon their Souls Truly a very comfortable spending of Eternity and a ravishing Description of the Joys of Heaven But as for your part had I made too light of that terrible day your seriousness looks more abusively than my Mirth you bring it in in such a sly and snearing way and you preach upon it in such untoward and light Expressions as would give occasion to any man though he were endued with some more Charity and Civility than your self to make a shrewd Conjecture of your Opinion How many good jests have you baulkt even in writing your Book lest you should be brought to answer for every prophane and idle Word A wicked Knave it seems you had them all in your Heart But whilst you conceal your good Jests for fear of Damnation could you ever hope to be saved by so many bad ones Can a man strein so much and beat so far about to hale in a poor malicious and smutty Conceit and yet study to baulk good Jests though they always come in easily and of their own accord Could you take so much pains to mistake through so many Pages J O for one word and then I Vowel for I Consonant to rear a few despicable fancies and yet think to perswade the World that you have baulkt a Thousand good Conceits for fear of accounting for idle words But seeing you are pleased to attribute something to my Judgment and desire to know what I think in good earnest of these things If it weigh any thing with such a one as you that dare not trust either your Soul or your Money with one of my Robe since the sinister Accident of Picquet I declare frankly that I would by no means advise you to check and mortifie your wit for fear of the day of Judgment for I will ensure you that neither your self nor any friend of yours shall then fare the worse for a good Jest. But yet you are afraid of being brought to answer for every prophane word poor man never be scrupulous for good jests are never prophane Thus have you unawares given the publique a tryal of your judgement of good wit whilst you think it consistent with prophaneness But could ever any Creature in the world beside thy self have been so scandalously impertinent as to beg excuse for the sparingness of his good jests only to avoid the danger of entrenching upon prophaneness and yet at the same time stuff a witless and ridiculous Libel with so much impudence malice and ribaldry Your last charge upon this Article is so silly that out of meer pity to your ignorance I could almost pass it by in silence viz. that whereas I affirm that our Saviour when he whipt the buyers and sellers out of the Temple took upon him the person and priviledge of a Jewish Zealot that is say you the second person of the Trinity did Personam induere of a notorious Rogue and Cut-throat But to omit the classicalness of your translation out of English into Latin I perceive you are as much a stranger to the Rabbies as to the Push-pin Divines and the truth is they are both much of the same understanding and therefore at present I shall only advise you for the cure of your ignorance to consult M r Selden de Jure Naturali Gentium Lib. 4. Cap. 4. and a little Treatise of D r Hammonds upon the Subject and there you will find a vast difference between a Jewish and a Fifth-Monarchy Zealot or between the Order of Zealots in the Jewish Common-wealth founded in imitation of Phinees and Elias and that was impower'd or at least licensed by Publique Authority to execute notorious Malefactors without form and process of Law and those bloody Cut-throats that under this disguise play'd such reaks in the City at the destruction of Jerusalem I say no more but I hope you will acknowledge my civility to let so great a miscarriage escape with so mild a correction Take warning and play no more at my heels with such trifles as these if you do thank your self if you go yelping off But of all the gall you have lickt up from J. O's vomit methinks there is none so rank and bitter as your Charge of Schism against the Church of England upon the account of your Fanatique Separation and that for no wiser Reasons than first because Schism rhimes to Ism and secondly because M r Hales has written a Pamphlet upon the Subject As for the first I scorn to answer it though it is surprising beyond all Bayes his Plots and Martyns pranks As for the second if M r Hales have printed any thing that reflects upon the Church of England though I have a very deep respect for his worth and piety it is no more to be regarded than if it had been bolted by such despicable Scriblers as your self and J. O. and that is your answer But if he had any such design it is enough if he will stand to his own definition of Schism that you have set in the Van of your long Quotation that it will concern the Church of England no more than J. O's charge of Socinianism viz. That Schism is an unnecessary separation of Christians from that part of the visible Church of which they were once Members Now he must be a bold man and something more that will venture to assign any Reason beside yours of Rhithm that shall convict the Church of England of being the cause of any unnecessary separation from that part of the visible Church of which it was once a Member only because you
Friend and Foe and eating up All Men Women and Children He that came off with Honour in threescore and seventeen Duels before he was one and twenty and in forty years more by Land and Sea fought as many pitcht Battels could not have made a more war-like sound Certainly you go as I have read of one in the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus for why should not I read your Fathers as well as you read mine always hung like a Justice of Peace's Hall with Pikes Halberts Peitronels Callivers and Muskets And if you could but victual your self for half a year in your Breeches it is not to be doubted but you would be able to over-run whole Countries Hungary Transylvania Bohemia and all the other territories of modern Orthodoxy The first Argument I made use of to remove all popular suspicions of Popery from the Government was the manifest inconvenience to the State that must arise from any alteration in the Church and this I proved from those impregnable principles of Loyalty that are peculiar to our Communion from all other Dissenters so that all design of Change being so manifestly imprudent and impolitick I thought it too wild a surmise for the Wisdome of the Government unless it were not only trinkled but bewitch'd to expose it self and therefore that there could be no other probable ground of danger but from the restlesness and seditious practices of the Fanatique Party that might possibly some time or other make way for the return of Popery by making disturbances in Church and State And to this purpose I gave a large Character of the peculiar Genius and the distinguishing principles of the Church of England from the Gibelline Faction But it seems you do not like my Characters and what is that to me am I obliged to justifie them because such Jack-Gentlemen as you do not approve them If you have any thing to except you know the Law and the Press is open but your bare dislike will no where pass for a confutation And to tell us that you find on either side only the natural effect of such Hyberbole's and Oratory that is not to be believed is in a great many words only to say I lye It may be so but yet that satisfies no body And yet tell me can you deny the Loyalty of the Church of England both in its principles and practices if you cannot whatever I have said in her commendation is undeniably true and then it is you that lease Can you deny that the regular Clergy are the most zealous Assertours of the Rights of Princes and that they and only they teach subjection to be an indispensable duty of Religion without false reserves and limitations Can you deny that those Subjects that stuck to the Communion of the Church of England ever stuck to hazard Lives and Fortunes out of devotion to their Prince Can you prove that every any forsook the Royal Cause in its greatest distress that did not first forsake the Church of England Can you deny that the main Article that distinguishes ours from all other Communions is that we vest the Crown in an Ecclesiastical Supremacy which is one half of the Sovereign Power whilst they challenge it either to themselves or some foreign Jurisdiction that has no more ground of Claim beside bare confidence to exercise any Authority in the Kings Dominions than the King has in his These are the Elogies I gave to the Church of England If they are such Hyperboles as are not to be believed that is to say if they are lyes make it good or else confess your impudence to call them so not only without proof or evidence but against Experience and Demonstration And so for my contrary Character of the Fanatiques that too is all a lye or such an Hyperbole as is not to be believed and so I am answer'd but if that be all you have to say I am very well satisfied too You had done them some kindness if you had undertaken to prove either that the Preachers never taught the people Aphorisms of Disloyalty and Rebellion or that they were never engaged in actual War against their lawful Prince by their Instigation or that any of them have renounced their old Principles though they could never be prevail'd with so much as to acknowledge their Crime either to God or the King These are plain Cases of Conscience so that till they have done this if they were ever guilty they are so still And therefore when you only tell us that I have dress'd them all up in Sambenita 's painted with all the Flames and Devils in Hell All the service you do your brethren is to inform the World that whoever will draw a Fanatique to the life must get the Devil to sit for his picture and if a man cannot describe them without dressing them up in Sambenita's I cannot help that this I am sure of that I have not made one false stroke or ill feature that I cannot justifie to any Artist I am not concern'd how ugly the piece is so it be but like and yet you your self have not been able to tell me one fault that I have committed I am only sorry that they are so very deformed as you have represented them for I never suspected before you informed me either that they were so bad or the Devil so good But I know what it is that so much girds you though your guilty Conscience dares not touch it viz. that I have there proved that nothing but the Good Old Cause lyes at the bottom of all your present Schism and that the most zealous Patriots of Conventicles are such as have given the World but very little ground to suspect them from their profess'd Principles or open Practices of the least tenderness of Religion and kindness to Monarchy so that nothing better can ever be expected from them than factions and republican Designs I know this twinges to the quick it is so observable all the Kingdome over that as you cannot endure to hear it so you dare not deny it And now your appearance has amply verified the truth of the Observation When at the same time that you come forth to vindicate the Innocence and Peaceableness of the Non-conformists and pass your word to the King that they shall never lift up disloyal thought against him you cannot forbear to let us see how warmly you are concern'd to justifie the late Rebellion In that the King had turn'd his whole Kingdome into a Prison that many thousands of his Subjects were constrained to seek habitations abroad every Countrey even though it were among Savages and Canibals appear'd more hospitable to them than their own that his whole Reign was deformed with Sibthorpianism i. e. with his affecting an absolute and arbitrary Government that himself and his party were the cause of the War that the Parliament took up Arms in defence both of their Liberty and Religion and that their Cause against the King was like
But I know this Inference was not made for any great opinion you had of its Logick it was only intended for a boast of your Antiquary-Learning to let the World know how deeply you skill in old Coins and Inscriptions and so take this occasion to acquaint us with this ancient Motto that you have pick'd out among the Marmora Arundeliana Dieu Mon-Droit But seeing you are given to these Curiosities here is a Trial worthy of your skill I have seen and pardon my Vanity was once Master of an Antique Medal On the Reverse whereof was graved Th' alliance betwixt Christ and David Expound me the meaning of the Device and tell me in what Emperours Reign it was Coin'd and I will upon the word of a Clergy-man of Honour requite your Information with ten of the largest Decus Tutamens and that is a very scarce Medal you know though not altogether so antique But however say you this Power I have ascribed to the Civil Magistrate is not derived from Christ or any grant of his but is antecedent to his coming or any Power granted by him as Head of the Church being given under the Broad-Seal of Nature so that his Majesty is next under that and immediately before Christ over all Persons and in all Causes c. This is very shrewd but then it is none of your own J. O. had it before you and in truth you are so given to purloining that I expect ere long to hear of you among the Advertisements at the bottom of the Gazet with a description of your Stature Complexion and Cloaths But the result of all that we discoursed upon this point was that he said I and I said no because though Magistrates were vested with an Ancient and Antecedent Right yet its Continuance ever since our Saviour commenced his Empire depends merely upon his confirmation in that whatever Prince does not reverse a former grant confirms it And therefore though they were impowr'd to govern the Church of God antecedent to his Supremacy yet that they are still instrusted with the same Authority they owe it entirely to his Sovereign Will and Pleasure because it is now in his Power to devest them of this or any other of their ancient Prerogatives so that seeing he has thought good to continue the Government of the World in the same state and Posture he found it in Princes are not now less indebted to him for the grant of their Imperial Power than if they had been at first instated in it by his immediate and express Commission This is a pretty reasonable answer to any plain man that has any stomach to be satisfied but it is too homely a Truth for your Palate nothing forsooth will down with you under the Geneva race of Capons and Mathematical Similitudes The streight Line continued into a Circle that is a Treat for a Gentleman that has Travel'd and understands the Orthodoxy of modern eating and drinking The last Essay of your shame-facedness for it is a great symptom of Modesty that you will not venture to be confident in any Objection for which you have not some Authority so that you dare not say one word that J. O. has not said before you is to stand in it that when J. O. affirmed that I confine the whole work and duty of Conscience to the inward acts and perswasions of the mind it was no downright Lye By this I perceive your whole family of the secret ones are incurably addicted to leasing and therefore as then I gave him the Lye so now without any farther Complement I give it you Sir It is but a blunt and Yeomanly Jest and I must confess smells somewhat of Garlick and Onions but it may serve for once though it were only for variety downright English is in some Cases as good a Flower as the fairest Trope in Aristotle's Rhetorick And I still declare that though it is no extraordinary conceit yet it is the best and most proper Repartee that my barren fancy is yet able to suggest to me upon so rude an occasion And tell me Sir for I have already made my appeal that suppose it were your own case that should any Person be so bold and disingenuous as not only to pervert the meaning and disturb the method of your Book I mean if you could write one with either but fasten upon you assertions equally false and wicked without any Reference to Page or Section and without any imaginable foundation of his mistake what other return would you vouchsafe to such an unmannerly attempt than what I have made If you would not return the same thanks to your Cowardize more than your Civility And therefore as for what you seem to threaten that such a provocation must needs come to a quarrel fear not there 's no danger of Blood-shed We that are no Brothers of the Blade know how to put up harder and more girding Repartees than this with Patience and Philosophy This is all the answer I will vouchsafe you for your own sake and revenge your self as you can But because both your self and J. O. have this Rapper perpetually in your mouths when you have nothing else to say I will for the Readers sake bestow upon you another Reply somewhat more soft and gentle especially when I hope it was not altogether lost upon J. O. because as you have observed most gravely and Senator-like that serious words have produced serious effects Thus when upon another occasion the tells no body but all the Nation that the thing by me asserted is that a man may think judge or conceive such or such a thing to be his Duty and yet have thereby no Obligation put upon him to perform it for Conscience we are inform'd has nothing to do beyond the inward thoughts of mens minds In answer to this it was inquired who gave in the Information because the Informer whoever he is would in some Courts of Justice have jeoparded something that he would be loth to lose for so lewd and bold a Forgery Phy phy for shame give over this pitiful Legerdemain Such open and visible falsifications serve only to expose the lewdness of your Cause and your Conscience and if you delight in such wretched Practices they will in process of time betray you to more pernicious Courses for what should hinder a man that can pervert and falsifie at this rate from forging Wills and setting counterfeit Hands to Deeds Neither fear nor modesty can ever restrain him that dares venture upon abuses so palpable when it is so absolutely impossible you should ever hope to escape the shame and rebuke of discovery The Assertion it self is one of the chiefest and most fundamental Maximes of Knavery and yet it is boldly charged upon me without the least shadow or syllable of pretence either to justifie the Accusation or excuse the Mistake You know as well as I that all I attempted was only to exempt the inward Acts
Accession from the Publique So that had you this or any other honest way of livelihood it might stop your mouth from bawling perpetually for the seisure of Church Revenues only in hopes of creeping into some small Office at the division of the Prey for I am apt to believe though all that know you know so ill of you that they will take it for a very strein of Candour and Courtship that all your rudeness to the Church does not proceed from meer malice to that and revenge upon the Dignitary Want will put any man that delights in Gaming out of humour but of all discontents there is nothing so peevish and so clamorous as when pride and poverty meet together in the same Gamester But that which seems to strike the greatest damp upon your mind and of which you make the oftenest complaints is that I talk so much of Pillories Whipping-posts Galleys Rods and Axes that is to say the Podâ—strabae the Tilethrae the Otagrae the Rhinolabides and the Cheilostrophia these are villainous Engines indeed but take heart Numps here is not a word of the Stocks and you since the Act of Indemnity is past and sure need never stand in awe of any more honourable Correction however suppose the worst you have read Seneca and Epictetus And what though your worth should sometime or other prefer you to the Pillory and that is not impossible yet it is no very painful Engine and Philosophers can endure any thing but smart it is only intended to make men look a little simply and put them out of countenance awhile but for confidence let you alone And now having thus far followed your dance it is time I hope to advance to serious Counsels You cry out of persecution So did Hugh Peters and so did Venner and so might all Malefactors when brought to Justice but that most of them are more modest than the most of you This is but seizing upon words and forcing them to sound or signifie any thing to your own purpose But unless all execution of Laws upon offenders deserve this hard name it is not enough for you to complain you are persecuted when you are only punish'd It is the cause that makes the only difference and you ought first to make out the iniquity of the Laws and to make good your obligation to disobedience before you can set up this out cry But to this you reply that you suffer for Conscience for Conscience what is that but that you would take advantage of it and report that I affirm there is no such thing as Conscience I would say it is for nothing For Conscience it self is an indeterminate thing and has no more certain signification than the clinking of a Bell and that is as every man fancies And though you are wont to discourse of it as though it were an infallible Oracle in your breasts or a Pope in your bellies yet had you but skill enough to anatomize your selves you would find nothing there beside Lights and Liver and Stomach and Guts and perhaps a deceitful heart for in the heart the Jews seated it of old though the Cartesian Philosophy has of late pearch'd it up into the Glandula Pinealis But wherever it resides it is not any principle of action distinct from the man himself being the very same individual thing with the mind soul and understanding so that there is no other real difference between a man and his Conscience than between a man and his mind or rather between a man and himself And therefore when you make such an heavy ditty about your being persecuted for your Conscience sake the result of it is that you are persecuted for your mind sake or suffer only because you have a mind to suffer For whatever Conscience is this is certain that it is neither the rule nor the reason of its own Actions but it is bound to guide and govern it self and all its determinations by the measures and prescriptions of its duty and that only can warrant either the wisdome or the innocence of its proccedings And therefore in any case to plead only Conscience for any action without specifying some particular Principle upon which it grounds it self and its dictate is in effect to plead any thing or rather nothing For without some certain direction distinct from it self it may signifie any thing what you please or if you please nothing And it may as well be call'd Pride Ignorance Passion Humour Peevishness Melancholy Rudeness Frenzy and Superstition as Conscience for whenever a mans mind is possest or abused with any of these unhappy Passions that to him is his Conscience And therefore if ever you intend to make out the justice of your Cause or the equity of your Grievances you must give over this hovering and uncertain pretence of Conscience in general and betake your selves to some more distinct and particular pleas and that is to appeal to the adequate rule and measure of humane actions and that is to all divine and humane Laws and if from either of these you can plead any express warrant to excuse your disobedience to the Constitutions of the Church in Gods Name plead it and then but not till then it will appear that you indeed suffer for the Cause of a good Conscience But if you have none then the case is plain that you suffer for nothing And yet it is as plain that you have not any other imaginable ground or pretext of reason to justisie your peevishness to the Ecclesiastical Laws beside the indisputable pleasure of your own proud and imperious minds for you are run off of all your old Cavils and know not what you would have beyond the satisfaction of crossing the Commands of Royal Authority For as for all your general clamours against the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Princes that they invade Gods Royalty lay waste the Consciences of men usurp upon their Christian Liberties first they signifie no more than the general plea of Conscience that whenever Superiours impose any Commands upon Subjects that they have no mind or stomach to obey they then entrench upon Gods Supremacy as the only Lord of Conscience and then it subverts all Government and cancels all Humane Laws in that they neither do nor can pass any Obligation upon any Subjects but only as they are bound upon their Consciences and lastly they will never stand to this themselves when they are urged with those horrid mischiefs that must perpetually overtake the Government if the plea be once admitted in general terms and without exception This then being quitted the Magistrate may and sometimes must restrain men in their pretences or perswasion of Religion without seating himself in Gods Throne or invading their Subjects Consciences or offering violence to their Christian Liberties And then have they nothing to pretend in their own excuse but the unlawfulness of the particular Commands themselves and this brings them to a sweet pass when they are kept to it
Clamours that have the face to compare three easie and harmless Rites with the Yoke of Moses and the Tyranny of Antichrist But thus split a Straw and lay it cross a Fanaticks forehead and as hard as it is it shall break the back of his Conscience I could have wish'd you had been as much refreshed and edified with the Arch-Bishop's Testimony as with Mr. Hales's that so instead of quoting a single Passage you might have taken upon your self the grateful penance of transcribing his whole Book and then you would have obliged us with that remarkable Prophecy wherewith he shuts up his Antiquities There is nothing more to be fear'd and provided against in this well-constituted Church of England than lest the Clergy whilst it takes pains in the Word and Truth and is with the greatest Observance subject to the Soveraign Power should be set forth as a Prey and Spoil to the Lavish and Spend-thrifts and be torn by the Reproaches and Contumelies of the Ignorant and exposed to the Affronts and Insolences of the Rascal-Rabble If this shall ever happen more heavy Scourges from God and sadder times than those of Queen Mary's Reign may justly be expected And yet thus it has been and thus it must be wherever it is the humour and fashion to vilifie the Priesthood Religion becomes contemptible with its Officers and where that loses its Esteem and Reverence Government loses its support and security And this was at the bottom of our late wild and wanton Rebellion that the People were debauch'd into a slight regard of all things Sacred and Civil by the bold and juggling suggestions of a few ambitious and sacrilegious Malecontents and then it was not only easie but natural to put Affronts upon all the Proceedings of Authority to bear down all its Remonstrances and run the Common-wealth into flat Anarchy and open War You see how little Execution is to be done upon the Church of England with the But-end of an Arch-Bishop as you express it with equall Wit and Manners Here the Quotation of my Lord Verulam which you could produce to my confusion would in my opinion have been much more to the purpose but to tell us what you can say without saying it is only to talk to your self Or the story of Pork that you forbear to tell too because you say I know it but I say I do not know it or if I did you should however have had the Manners to have told it for his Majesties sake because he knows how to make use on 't But another Qualm that is upon every turn throwing you into groaning Fits is that after all my seeming and pretended zeal for the Church of England for which you have the greatest kindness in the World were it not for the Pick-thankness and Pick pocketingness of the Clergy I shall be found by any unpack'd Jury of Divines little better than a rank Erastian a word you have pick'd up out of Bishop Bramhal though for any thing you know that may signifie a Wizard or a Magician yes or a Jewish Zealot i. e. a notorious Rogue and Cut-throat But be it what it will this too was as all the rest are J. O's grievance And you are both Crafty Colts that when you know your selves unable to answer Arguments presently spurn at them with some false and foul Recrimination I scorn'd to take any notice of his Braying and so I should of yours but that I perceive some weak and well meaning Brethren that are only wont to skim and skip over Books to be a little startled at the Impeachment because I all along discourse of the Power of the King and not of the Church though the reason of it is very obvious viz. because the Subject I design'd and proposed to treat of was the Power of the King and not of the Church so that if you and J. O. are aggrieved at any thing it is for no other cause than that I have stuck close enough to my own Argument and too close to yours Now Sir as you well remember you have for want of wiser Remarques calculated at least ten times over in what Year of the Lord and upon what day of the Month my several Books were born and then if you will compare it you will find that the juncture of Affairs to which the first was accommodated was at a certain Season after the Chatham Adventure when you began to lift up your Heads and to Nose your Governours and to make bold demands in the name of your Consciences against the late illegal Impositions of King and Parliament And you know what innumerable swarms of Pamphlets you were perpetually sending abroad only to declare to all his Majesties good Subjects that either were already out of humour or had a mind so to be that if himself or any other Civil Magistrate whatsoever shall presume to challenge or exercise any Authority over their Free born Consciences in any matters of Religion whatsoever he usurps upon the Royalty of God and involves himself in the guilt of Tyranny and Persecution This was loud and broad enough to alarm the Church of England we understood the men and their meaning and had no mind believe me to have that comfortable settlement restored to Church and State by his Majesties happy Restauration unravel'd by these Men's bold and insolent Pretences And therefore divers Persons out of pure Love for the Church and Loyalty to their Prince and Zeal to their Countrey set themselves to beat back all your new Republican Pleas of Sedition and to assert his Majesties Prerogative against all your old Shifts of Dis-loyalty Among the rest I had no more Wit than to thrust my self too forward into the Scuffle and to pursue you too close through all your peevish Clamours and Pretences For when I saw men of known and approved Enmity to the present State buzze abroad such Exorbitant Principles among the Common-People as flatly contradict all the Principles and defeat all the Obligations of Government I could not I ought not to refrain from lashing such Lewd Designs with some Warmth and Smartness of Reproof and if I have any where overlash'd it was out of an over-vehement Concern for the Peace and Prosperity of my Countrey though for my own part I am not sensible of any one Expression that is chargeable with the least Harshness or Incivility I have only express'd ill things by their Proper Names and whereas both your self and J. O. pour fourth in every Page incessant complaints of Railing and Reviling that is but an Uncivil Word that you may throw at any man that you are not fond of and it proceeds merely from your Old prodigious Pride and Partiality to your selves who whilst you make it both your Recreation and Employment to invent or blazon Slanders against the Innocent rave and fome at all Conviction of guilt against your selves I have challenged you often enough to specifie but one foul or false word in
Keys in Mr. Mayor and the Town-Clerk and issued out Excommunications under the Town Seal and every Fisherman upon the Lake Lemane if he were a Livery man of the City immediately became an Apostle and the Spirit of Infallibility forsook the whole Order of Church-men and setled upon every illiterate Mechanick that had a bold Face and a loose Tongue And with what Apostolical Wisdome and Gravity they made Religion it self ridiculous Mr. Calvin himself has inform'd us particularly in the cases of Bertileir and Perin who were absolved from the Sentence of Excommunication by the Common-Council and under the Town-Seal And 't is observable that those States that have made bold to despise or disregard the Power of the Clergy have always first prostituted the Revenues of the Church to the worst of men and in a little time the Government of it to the Scorn and Contempt of the Common Rabble And therefore all wise and pious Princes have ever chosen to govern Religion by the Counsel and Assistance of their Clergy and to be determined in Enquiries of Faith by their Decrees and Declarations for though all Power of External Coercion be vested in the Civil Magistrate yet that of teaching and declaring the Law of God is the Right and Office of Ecclesiasticks so that though they cannot force Princes to confirm and ratifie their Decrees yet may Princes be obliged by Vertue of an Higher Authority by regard to Piety and Religion by the Order and Decency of things to have reference to their Judgments though if they will not it is not in the Power of the Church to call them to an account for their Proceedings as the men of Rome and Geneva talk That shall be demanded at an higher Judicature they can only declare and discharge their Duty and leave the pursuance of their Cause to the Judgment of God For in all Affairs whatsoever capable of External Cognizance the Supreme Civil Power must and will over-rule this is absolutely necessary to the Order and Preservation of Government and the World must be govern'd as they will or not be govern'd at all And thus have I briefly proved that the Clergy must be vested with some Power peculiar to themselves both from the Institution of Christ and the nature of Society for as much as the Constitution of the Church as such is distinct from that of the Civil State so that all Christians are obliged to the Visible Profession of the Name of Christ not only without the leave but against the Edicts of the Supreme Authority of Kingdomes and Common-wealths The next thing to be consider'd against Erastus is that their Office is not merely declarative or ministerial but carries proper jurisdiction in all the Acts and Exercises of its Power and enforces all its Decrees by Penalties and Inflictions and wherever we find Coercion there is all that can be required to the Nature and Exercise of Jurisdiction that is nothing else but a Power of Imposing Laws and Inflicting Punishments and whoever has a Right to both these Acts of Government has all that Authority that is proper to Empire and Dominion and whatsoever Privileges and Prerogatives of absolute Sovereignty we can imagine they are all reducible to one of these swo Heads either a Power of requiring Obedience to its Commands or of punishing Disobedience by its Penalties and both these are apparently included in the Priestly Office that consists of two parts first the Authoritative Power of Preaching whereby they are enabled to declare Divine Laws under Penalty of the Divine Displeasure and this is proper Legislation and is declared to be so in his Original Commission granted by our Saviour to his Apostles and their Successours to the End of the World in that he sent them as his Father sent him to teach or disciple all Nations whereby he derived upon them the same Power that himself was furnisht with from above to pursue the same ends so that if he himself were entrusted with any proper Jurisdiction he has conveyed and imparted the same to the Apostolical Office and Order and that he was so is an unquestionable and granted Case on all sides and therefore he himself founds the Validity of their Commission upon the Right of his Power All Power in Heaven and Earth says he is given me of my Father therefore go c. I am now enthroned Sovereign Lord of the whole Creation and the Exercise of all my Fathers Power is entrusted to my Management and therefore in the first place I appoint and Authorize you and your Successors in my Name and by Vertue of my Supremacy to take care of the Guidance and Instruction of my Church this is the Office and Power to which you are deputed next and immediately under my self in the Discharge and Execution whereof I engage all my Power to be immediately assistant to you to the end of the World So that it is plain that their Power of Preaching and Declaring the Laws of the Gospel is properly Authoritative and of the same Nature though of a Subordinate force with our Saviours own Dominion over Mankind and all Men by Vertue of his Command and his Commission are bound to give Obedience to their Doctrines in the right and Faithful Discharge of their Trusts as to the Authorized Stewards of his Mysteries And then as for the other part of the Power of the Keys or Church Censures it is as full of Jurisdiction as any Secular Power whatsoever it judges gives Sentence and inflicts Punishment in Criminal Causes and though they do not execute their own Judgment but leave it to the Divine Justice yet where God has promised to abett their Censures by his immediate Power 't is the same thing as to all the purposes of Government as if it were done by the stroke of their own Arm and though they did but only minister to the Divine Judgement as to these immediate Inflictions of Heaven yet the sentence it self is a severe instance and exercise of Coercive Jurisdiction it cuts a man off from all the Advantages of the Communion of Saints and of our Saviours Incarnation and that is a Capital Execution and more affrightful to any man that makes Profession of the Christian Faith than all the Rods and Axes and Pillories and Whipping-posts of the Secular Power And as their Authority carries in it true and proper Jurisdiction so is it in its Kind Supreme Universal and Uncontroulable and extends to all Nations Ages and Conditions Kings and Princes are subject to the Spiritual Authority of their Doctrines they have Souls to be conducted to Heaven as well as their Subjects and therefore stand as much in need of Spiritual Guides and Instructors for if Christ have intrusted the Spiritual Government of his Church in the hands of his Apostles and their Successors then all its Members of what Rank and Quality soever are regularly to make enquiries and receive determinations of Conscience from their Mouths and when the
not a syllable of advice or exhortation to Subjects to perswade them to a modest and peaceable behaviour towards their Superiours No though Kings and men of Courtly breeding and great Quality have or ought to have so much manners and civility as to condescend to their Inferiours and if one have got a cold to force them to be cover'd or if a man have an antipathy against any thing to be so civil as to refrain the use of it however not to press it upon the Person with many more pretty resemblances though as you inform us there is no end of similitudes and as you employ them no use neither But alas such mannerliness as this is not to be expected from men of private condition and breeding and if His Majesty be pleased to stand cap in hand to a high-shoon Clown though he have a cold who can blame the Boor if he have not so much Courtship and Ceremony as graciously to desire his worship to put on The Common People are to be pardoned their rudeness for their want of education and if at any time they behave themselves stubbornly and sawcily to their Superiours they will out of discretion connive at their infirmities and out of common humanity yield to their follies But no wise Prince will ever by unnecessary impositions disoblige his good Subjects and force them to rebellious practices for a trifle or an uncivil word And what a lump of History have you here presented to Kings to terrifie them from making too bold and being too sawcy with their people Pag. 244 5 6 And if we take away some simpering phrases and timorous introductions your Collection will afford as good Precedents for Rebellion and King-killing as any we meet with in the writings of J. M. in defence of the Rebellion and the Murther of the King But that which most of all betrayes the wretchedness of your design is that you throughout either misreport or equivocate so elaborately that you cannot but be fully convinced within your self that you have forged Relations to no other purpose than to represent the weakness of Government and the feasibleness of Rebellion as we shall have occasion to examine hereafter in the mean while be your idle stories never so false they are much more impertinent For what if wise Kings be taught by these examples to condescend to their Inferiours and to connive at the infirmities i. e. seditious spirits of their people for fear of daggers and revolts What if it be as dangerous for a Prince to take a man by the tongue as a Bear by the tooth What if bloody wars have been occasion'd by the difference of an accent or a syllable And a letter in the name of Beans and Goats have set a whole Province together by the ears And what if Empires have been shipwrackt upon a new word as Mariners split upon a rock This only proves that it is an unwise and impolitick attempt to hazard a Crown out of fondness to an affected word And though it may be an usurpation upon the Peoples Liberties yet certainly it is none upon their Consciences if the Sovereign Authority will take upon it self to define the signification of an uncertain and ambiguous phrase And that is the parallel of our Case viz. That whereas these men have from time to time and at all times raised such prodigious yells and clamours of Conscience against the determination of significant Ceremonies 't is enough to shew that their signification is of the very same use and nature with that of words so that people have no more ground of offence upon the score of Conscience against that than this And yet no mans Conscience howsoever tender or peevish can ever pretend to be aggrieved with defining the signification of a doubtful word and if it cannot then has he as little ground upon that pretence to complain of the determination of any significant Ceremony Though if the change of words may be of dangerous consequence to the Government of the State that is a consideration of another nature and that concerns not my Analogy between words and symbols that are in this debate to be consider'd only as matters of Conscience and not of Policy So that if a new and unpresidented word do not endanger the shipwracking of a mans Conscience that is enough to evince that neither is a new Ceremony a more splitting rock than a new word and is this may prove mischievous upon other scores viz. that it would render all Laws uncertain that it would defeat the Act of Oblivion that it would spoil the Declaration of Indulgence to tender Consciences and throw all back again into Anarchy and Rebellion Yet what is all this to the signification of Ceremonies that may be alter'd ten thousand different ways without making any alteration of the Laws So that howsoever impracticable and of whatsoever ill consequence the imposition of words may sometimes prove there is not the least shadow of ground from thence to conclude as you do that of Ceremonies to be no less pernicious And this I hope is enough to prove that you have been sufficiently impertinent though how learnedly you have been solsuppose needs no proof And yet after all this astonishment if it were to any purpose this very power of defining and circumscribing the signification of words that you fancy so splitting a rock has ever been used and chalenged by all Law-givers as an essential ingredient of the Soveraign Power in that without it it is very difficult if not altogether impossible to avoid ambiguity of Laws A man of your humour that had a mind to be learnedly impertinent might heap up innumerable instances to this purpose But if you have either will or leasure to consult the Civil Law Lib. 50 Digest Tit. 16. de verborum significatione you will there meet with three or four hundred particular examples I shall only trouble you that are or may be an English Senator with two or three out of our own Laws The first occurrs in an Act of Parliament Primo Eliz. for the Uniformity of Common-Prayer and Service in the Church and administration of Sacraments where it being enacted that the Book of Common-Prayer and no other form shall be used at all open Prayer the Act it self fixes and defines the meaning of open Prayer viz. that by it is meant that Prayer which is for others to come unto or hear either in common Churches or private Chappels or Oratories commonly call'd the service of the Church And in another Act as I take it of the same year it is positively defined that no matter or cause shall from that time forward be adjudged Heresie but only such as heretofore have been adjudged to be Heresie by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four general Councils or by any other general Council where the same has been declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical scriptures or such as hereafter
Government and therefore being storm'd and beaten out of all their old pleas of a Divine Right are forced to abuse the people that may be abused with any thing or nothing with such grounds of sedition as are not to be removed by all the Wisdome and Power in the world It were to some purpose if to all their noise about Conscience in general they could assign any principle to justifie their clamour beside printing it emphatically and in great letters but when every man thâ—t understands common sense or an hard word sees through the vanity and idleness of all their Cavils what greater assurance can they give us that there is some other design lies lurking at the bottom that they dare not own till some seasonable and propitious juncture of affairs shall invite it forth into open action In short their whole Controversie with the Church of England lies in so narrow a compass and the exceptions wherewith they assault our present settlement are so shamefully frivolous that to me it is one of the greatest riddles in the world where they should find confidence enough to bear up thus long in such a desperate Cause For as to their general pretence against the power of Princes in matters of Religion as if they thereby invaded Gods own Prerogative they in many cases forgo it themselves and acknowledge it sometimes necessary to the publique peace to restrain by force of Law some Sects and pretences of Religion and though they grant it but in one case as in the Laws against Popery or in provisions against the attempts of Prince Vennor and his forty men that overthrows the whole force of this Argument in that it allows the exercise of this Power without entrenching upon Gods peculiar Royalty And then have they nothing to plead but the peril of our establish'd Ceremonies and here the whole debate is plainly reduced to these two questions whether they except against any but what are symbolical And whether they can assign any that are not so And if they cannot as it is plain they cannot what follows every body sees as well as I. So that when they pitch upon such grounds of discontent as they themselves know no Government can avoid it is manifest that all this pretended niceness is only made use of to disguise something worse And if they would clear their integrity to the State or at least hide their hypocrisie under more passable and likely vizards they would do well to invent some more material scruples for which they crave their Gracious Indulgence but till then whilst they keep up such clamorous and importunate demands of Toleration though no body knows for what they only give their Governours fair warning to beware of the malignity of their intentions This I hope they will consider of themselves or if they will not that some body else will do it for them And now methinks Sir after all your fury you are as reasonable an Adversary would you were as modest and civil too as a man could lightly expect to encounter so meek and gentle as to turn both cheeks to correction and to accept of being boxt on both sides for now I hope you your self see there is not one Paragraph in all your Libell that pretends to be serious and argumentative that is not notoriously both false and impertinent And that is too much advantage in such a trifling engagement for it is scarce worth any mans while to spend so many words as are necessary to discover both when it is to no other purpose than to correct one mans pert and conceited ignorance But from the Premises 't is manifest that the Body of your whole Book consists of these three sorts of Materials 1. Your impudent repetition of the same enormous pervertings and falsifications for which I thought I had sufficiently convicted J. O. of boldness and disingenuity And this takes in the Grand Thesis the six Playes and the Hoops and Hola's 2. Your stubborn adherence to the same dull and childish Cavils which I refused to rebuke in him because of their manifest trifling and vanity as in the charge of Erastianism perverse translations of the Scriptures and false Quotations of Authours 3. Your starting some new Absurdities of your own so wild and extravagant that never any man before your self was frantick enough to believe or assert as in all the shatter'd talk of Sacraments and Symbolical Ceremonies By all which you see what brave things a wise man may perform and how dully a witty man may come to play the fool by being learnedly impertinent As for the remainder of your Book it is all such course and unserviceable rubbish that it is not worth the sisting it is such loose and empty talk as is as applicable to confute any other Book in the world as mine in so much that I might if it would but have recompenced the pains have turn'd three parts of your own Pamphlet upon it self As all your profest fooling either by way of Similitude or Rithm or Story your playing upon single words your confuting introductions and transitions your smutty imaginations your general and insolent censures with abundance more of such bold and immodest stuff that though it signifies nothing by it self yet is almost enough to beat any modest man out of countenance by pure force of brow and confidence But in answer to your Ribaldry I can only blush and say nothing and as for your rude and uncivil language I am willing to impute it to your first unhappy Education among Boat-Swains and Cabin-Boys whose Phrases as you learn'd in your Childhood so it is not to be expected you should ever unlearn them by your Conversation with the Bear-herds of Barn the Canibals of Geneva the Boys and Lackeys at Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn-fields But as for your bold and general censures that you may not pretend that I either baulk or slide by any thing of weight and moment or frown it away with bigg and burly looks as you have dealt with several modest propositions of mine that when you have not been able to produce one Iota of proof against them yet have rated them with such an haughty and magisterial assurance as if you expected to make them sneak and slink away out of sight by meer sternness of look That I say you may not complain that I pay you in your own brass coyn I will present you a brief Catalogue of your own Drama Common places of confidence and leasing and then refer it to any Jury of your own empanelling whether such paltry trash can deserve any other reply than neglect and scorn First of all say you I am offended at the presumption and arrogance of your stile whereas there is nothing either of wit or eloquence in all your Books worthy of a Readers and more unfit for your own taking notice of Then your infinite Tautology is burdensom And your profanation of the Scripture intolerable for though you alledge that it
that of Christianity only too good to be fought for c. And now when you ensure us that the Fanatiques shall never rebel it is for this reason only because there neither is nor can be any such thing as Rebellion for if the last War were none you are safe for ever forfeiting your Loyalty and if that cause were too good to be fought for it will be hard to find one too bad It is well you have declared that if you can do the Non-conformists no good you are resolved you will do them no harm and desire that they should lye under no imputation on your account I am confident you intended honestly but they are more endebted to your good will than your discretion When your very Apology in their behalf brings them under the greatest imputation For this not only makes good my suggestion which you would lay by your Caveat that they are acted by men of Democratical Spirits but withal it is a stronger evidence of their continuing constant and stubborn to their old Principles because as they would never be brought to disclaim them so now it seems they are resolved to justifie them and lay the whole guilt of the Rebellion upon the King himself I know you are a wise and wary man and design'd when you set pen to paper to take upon you the Person that is Personam induere of a Royallist and not to betray the least kindness to or concern for the Good Old Cause But you are a Gamester and know what vast odds a man may lay on Natures side And thus have I more than enough vindicated every page and period of my Preface and yet the main of your business is still behind for that was the least of your design to confute me your Plot was to take occasion to fly out into invectives against the Clergy of all Ages in general and of the Church of England in particular first as the cause of the late War and secondly as the hindrance of our present settlement and then having barr'd them from trinkling with State Affairs and wheadled the King against hearkning to their Counsels though you do it so grosly and with such an impudent malice that it is like stalking by the side of a Butter-fly with a face as broad as a Brass-Copper you advise Princes to a more moderate course of Government and teach them from many sad examples to behave themselves dutifully to their Subjects upon peril of their displeasure or worse I shall as briefly as I can consider your performance in all these particulars and so leave you to the shame of your own Meditations First then having with mighty exultation of Spirit and words much too good for your heart congratulated His Majesties most Happy Restauration just as Malefactors cry God save the King because they have escaped the Gallows and so do you magnifie his Clemency Mercy and Goodness for carrying the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity through But this serenity is suddainly over-cast and you knit your brows and depress your Superciliums and at length with much fleering and more reluctancy for you are mighty sorry to speak it yet because it is a sad truth tell it him you must that the Ecclesiastical Part would not accomplish his Felicity and no wonder when the Animosities and Obstinacy of some of the Clergy have in all Ages been the greatest obstacle to the Clemency Prudence and good intentions of Princes and the establishment of their affairs Which is to say that the Clergy has not only in all Ages nay and places too been the bane of Government but more particularly the Clergy of England murther'd His Royal Father and are more accomptable for His Majesties and the Kingdoms sufferings than either the Rebels that took his Crown off of his head or those that afterwards took his head off of his shoulders But they shall answer for themselves anon we must first traverse your first Bill against the Clergy in general But who are you that are thus acquainted with the Clergy of all Ages time out of mind sure you can be no less a man than one of the Patriarchs or a fifth from Methusalem or at least Andrew de Temporibus John's elder Brother you have so general an acquaintance with the Clergy of all Ages As for the Clergy of the Ages before Noahs flood I will not contend for for any thing that I know there might be Bishops of Munster and Cullen and Strasburg in those times and I cannot disprove it but that King Nimrod's Chaplains were his Hunts-men but in all Ages since I cannot find that they have been more cruel than other men Aaron I am sure was remarkable for his meekness and mercy for though the Grand Remonstrance of Corah were intended against himself and his Bran for trinkling Moses and the Members of the Sanhedrin yet did he bestir himself to attone the Rebellion and procure pardon for the Offenders Though I must confess his Grand-child Phinehas was an arrant Jewish Zealot that is as your modern Orthodox Rabbies inform you a notorious Rogue and Cut-throat And as for the Heathen Priests though they were very famous Trinklers I do not find that they were any great Men-eaters In my Roman Empire I do not read that they were fiercer Canibals of the Race of Man or Capon-kind than the Laity nor I believe can you prove out of your 5 Ep. to Marcellinus that the Clergy were the Authours of Julian's Persecution But the bottom of all this is that the Priests have in all Ages and in all Kingdomes been advanced to places of greatest Authority next to the Sovereign Power it self The Druids of Britany the Magi of Persia the Priests of AEgypt Judaea Assyria AEthiopia are a sufficient Indication that however fanciful men may fool themselves and their Countrey with other Philosophical Models and Theories of Policy yet Religion and the Ministers of Religion will have the greatest share in the Government and the reason is as evident as the experiment is Catholique in that nothing can so truly and effectually awe the greatest part of mankind as the dread of the world to come and therefore they whose peculiar Office it is to guide and instruct men in their future concerns must and will in spite of all the witty States-men in the world have the greatest reverence power and interest with the generality of the People And thus though the Authority of the Clergy of England be at this time by reason of some malignant effects of the late war at as low an ebb as perhaps the power of the Priests ever was under any Monarchy yet it is manifest that for all their disadvantages all of the Loyal Party Nobility Gentry and Commonalty that are sober and serious in the belief and profession of their Religion cannot but have a veneration to their Persons and a deference to their Judgements How else think you could they be so easily trinkled And as for all the several
Casts and Clans of Non-conformists they are perfectly enslaved to the Authority of their several Teachers So that do what we can the Clergy will have a strong influence upon the people all the present contest is whether it be not more beneficial to the Government that such should be protected and encouraged who profess Loyalty and have given no ground to doubt the sincerity of their profession than such as have heretofore incited the people to Rebellion and never since gave any the least assurance of their having renounced their former Principles which if they had they would have done it loud enough and still as far as they dare venture disturb the present quiet and decry the present settlement of the Nation And this is the last issue of your Advice to rebate the Power of the Regular Clergy thereby to enlarge and advance that of the Non-conformists for as our Interest weakens and moulders away it is unavoidable but that some others that pretend to the same Office must gain as much Power as we lose unless people fall into down-right Atheism and contempt of Religion and that sets them loose from all effectual obligations of Loyalty to their Prince and Duty to their Countrey and Honesty to one another and if the humour grow strong and prevalent they in a little time grow barbarous and ungovernable and with looseness of manners and a general neglect of the publique quickly bring on disorders and for the most part dissolutions of Government So that this is plain enough that no State can be tolerably govern'd or secured but by the assistance of Religion And then if that have so powerful an influence upon affairs of State and over the minds of the People its publique Officers that have the greatest share of Power over that cannot but have a proportionable share of Power over them And for this reason have wise Princes in all Ages entrusted them with places of greatest Authority and Reputation in the Government and good reason too for if they are but qualified with parts and abilities equal to others that makes them as fit States-men as any but then the interest proper to their Office gives them a mighty and unimaginable advantage over all And hence it is that they have in all Ages been envied and maligned by every proud man that thought himself qualified for the great places that they filled and these have alwayes set themselves to asperse their Government and to expose them to the hatred of the People by charging all necessary severity and just execution of Laws upon their Tyranny The Prince is a gracious Prince but it is these men that thrust him upon these cruel and sanguinary courses and were these bloody Counsellours once remov'd His Majesty would quickly return to His Natural Clemency and we should see no more of these Merciless and Arbitrary proceedings And this has been the cruelty of the Clergy in all Ages that they have not trifled with their Authority but have been watchful to nip Sedition in the bud and by a little severity at first save all those executions that would be necessary to suppress it afterwards For if once it gets head and form it self into a Party it is then upon even terms with the Government and nothing but the event of War can decide the Controversie Whereas all beginnings of mischief are easily withstood and to take off one Malecontented Head of Faction may ordinarily save the lives of thousands of well-meaning people And that is the grievance of such as you would seem to be that the Clergy have alwayes been watchful upon their designs and kept the innocent people out of harms way by snapping the contrivers of mischief And wherever their precipitate violent rigorous and extreme Counsels as you call them have been effectually followed it has usually saved the trouble and expence of Civil Wars unless when the storm was grown too great before they came to the Helm and then it is not in their power to lay it that must be done by other men and other instruments It were easie for them by timely care to prevent Wars but when the people are prepared and resolved for it afore-hand they cannot force them to be peaceable by Laws and nothing can reduce them but beating them into obedience And these are the two things that may make them sometimes seem more rigorous than other States-men in that 1. They are usually more watchful upon the artifices of ambitious or discontented Grandees 2. In that they are more aware of the Impostures of Religion and understand the mischiefs of Enthusiasm more perfectly than usually Lay-men can or at least will do and this puts them upon that kind of severity which those that suffer by it though justly call Persecution though it is notoriously manifest to any person of common prudence that for the most part the offenders are not punisht for their private conceits but only for the security of the State in that either they themselves carry on ill designs under that pretext or if they are simple and well-meaning they are carried on by those that do I cannot conjecture any other grounds you have of charging the Clergy with rigour and obstinacy in all Ages unless it be that they are of all Orders of men the most faithful and zealous servants of their Masters and the most vehement assertors of the Supreme Power against popular encroachments This I am sure was the only ground of the late Long-Parliaments hatred to the Bishops because they were as one express'd it the trustiest agents of Tyranny because of that stubborn and invincible opposition they shewed to their Rebellious and Democratical designs and for that reason did the Cabal that trinkled all the rest of the Members petition the People to petition themselves to remove them both from the King and out of the House because whilst they stood in the way they could not come at the King that is the Crown And this too Mr. Trinkle is the ground of all your indignation for it is purely out of displeasure to the English Clergy that you are transported into this modest and mannerly censure of the Clergy of all the world And your enmity to them is nothing else than that they preach Doctrines so contrary to yours and after all the fatal Consequences of the late Rebellion will not be prevail'd upon to perswade the people that the good old Cause was the Cause too good And this becomes your Brazen Modesty to indite the most sacred and serious Profession in the World of all the mischiefs and miseries that ever befell Mankind without alledging any instance of proof unless it be the Clergy of the Church of England and that 1. because they will not be reconciled to a good opinion of those men that have been engaged in actual Rebellion and yet are so far from acknowledging their Errour that they justifie their Cause 2. because they do not think it convenient to indulge and connive at
Covenauters Cause were too good to be fought for as little Logick as I understand I understand so much that then the Kings was too bad to be fought for and that is enough for one Conclusion But whatever was the occasion of the War whether the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Vicar of Brackley as you will have it or Ignoramus and Mr. Selden as a second concludes or the School-men and the Universities as a third observes whether I say any or all of these accidents might contribute to it I am not concern'd because occasions of mischief are unaccountable for their being so in that men that have a mind to it may make any thing an Occasion and yet still the occasion shall be as innocent as I believe the Children of Edinburgh were But if instead of the Occasion you desire to be satisfied in the cause of the War seeing you have been at so much pains in transcribing an huge Gazet to give me satisfaction I think my self at least a little obliged to give you my opinion and if that be not sufficient to satisfie you I shall only advise you to take heed of being too inquisitive for assure your self your Party will have but little reason to con you any thanks for demanding any farther satisfaction Inprimis then it hapned in this War as it does in all others that there were some general Causes that were set on work by some particular Circumstances As 1. The unusual ignorance of the Common People concerning their Duty and Obligation to the Government every man supposing himself as much Master of his own Estate as if he had lived out of all Society and expecting that the King should be able to maintain the Common Safety without his particular Contribution and this you may easily imagine makes them apt to murmur and tumultuate in all such straits and necessities of the State as require Money and Taxes 2. The seditiousness of Persons of broken and shatter'd fortunes and as there are great numbers of such at all times so are they alwayes with the formost to promote Disturbances in all States because it is very possible they may make their Condition better but impossible they should ever make it worse 3. The great numbers of well-meaning men that are usually carried down with the stream so that though possibly they were never disobliged at Court nor infected with Seditious Principles against the State nor addicted to Fanatique Factions against the Church yet are easily over-born with the noise of a whole Kingdom to joyn with that Party that pretends with most confidence to zeal for the publique good These with many others are the Materials and common Principles of all Rebellion but they never or very rarely come into action unless they are put upon it by some other particular and emergent Causes And these were plainly The Insolence and Seditiousness of the Presbyteran Preachers for it seems the Clergy of all Parties as well as all Ages can be mischievous enough because those that can do most good may for the same reason do most harm and therefore it is as ordinary for some to obstruct the Clemency of Subjects as it is for others to obstruct the Clemency of Kings Now it is certain these men had gain'd a mighty esteem and reverence with the People partly by the confidence of their pretences stiling themselves Gods Ambassadours and chalenging as much submission to their Doctrines as if they had wrought Miracles or produced written Credentials from Heaven partly by the vehemence of their tone and gesture and the particular manner of acting their Sermons but chiefly by the subject matter of their popular discourses in which they were alwayes very sparing of their reproofs against the gainful vices of tradesmen such as fraud cozening and covetousness and on the contrary very prodigal of their declamations and suggestions against such miscarriages as were proper to the Government And by inveighing perpetually against oppression they seem'd to take part with the People against their Superiours But that which gave them more Authority than all this over their minds was a certain way they had got of raising unreasonable and unavoidable troubles of Conscience by which means they continually kept great multitudes of well-meaning persons in perfect slavery and subjection to their own good-pleasure Now by the advantage of all these Artifices it was easie for them to infuse any poyson into the minds of their Proselytes And what Principles they taught them in reference to the establish'd Government they are so vulgarly known and so sufficiently recorded that I suppose it is now very superfluous to inform the world It is enough that there is not one Aphorism of miscief and rebellion that they did not impose upon the People under the obligation of a Christian duty as it is largely and distinctly proved out of their own words in the Book of dangerous Positions and Proceedings that is an exact Collection of all the Treason in the world Do but read it over and then tell me what peaceable and orderly Subjects they are like to prove whose Consciences are acted by such lewd and desperate Principles But though the Puritan Preachers from their very beginning never spared themselves nor their lungs against their Governours yet under the late Kings Reign by reason of the remiss Government of Arch-bishop Abbot they became more bold and boysterous than ever and especially when they perceived his Majesty so sincerely addicted to the Church of England and so resolutely bent to reduce all Factious Dissenters to order and obedience they began to think the cause brought to its last gasp if he proceeded without check to his designs and therefore they bestir themselves and thrash the Pulpits to exasperate the People against the Government of the Church and inveigh in the coarsest and most bitter expressions against that of the State And thus by the zeal and madness of these men were the People at length preach'd out of all sense of their Duty and Allegiance and by the perpetual roarings and bellowings of these Geneva Bulls were perfectly amazed into Rebellion And that indeed was their powerful preaching to raise Armies and beat up the Alarm to a Civil War If any man shall be at leisure to peruse those Humiliation-Sermons that were contrived to sanctisie the Cause he shall meet with such wretched and horrible abuses of Religion as the wickedness of all former Ages is not able to parallel What horrid work did they make with the Word of God How shamelesly did they urge the Prophesies of the Old Testament in defiance to the Precepts of the New And with what intolerable presumption did they load his Majesty with every burthen they could pick up against Moab or Babylon Their impertinence was almost as bold as their impiety And the People were rarely taught any thing beside Treason and Blasphemy And thus were they preach'd into Arms and converted into Rebellion they press'd Horse and Foot out of every
England against the Church it self such Topicks as these are too dirty to be used in any but a bad and a baffled Cause And as for J. O. himself though I have heard many strange stories of him I scorn'd to publish any one Report to his disadvantage and have charged nothing upon him but what himself thought good to publish to the World Neither in truth should I have done that but that you see I was forced upon it by his own provocation as I would clear my own Candour and Sincerity And I protest that if he can convict me of any one Forgery it shall not suffice to ask him forgiveness upon my Knees but I will make him as publick a Recantation as I think he owes to his King and Countrey And as for the truth of all those Principles of Blasphemy and Rebellion that I have produced against him out of his own Writings I will appeal to his own Conscience and Ingenuity And if my Citations are true I shall trouble my self no more about them but leave it to the company to judge of the consequences of such Tenets and to himself to consider under what duty he lyes to the publique upon their account And how far you your self were engaged or whether at all I scorn to enquire and though by the Principles of your Book you seem to be full as bad as he yet really I think him as much worse than you as a well-meaning Zealot is more cruel than a Souldier of fortune you only fight for pay but he for spite and zeal And now what if I do inculcate the late War and its horrid Catastrophe and will needs have it to be upon a religious account And so I will and you know too well how demonstratively I have proved it out of their own Declarations In answer to all which you are only so civil as to suspect that I have been better acquainted with Parliament Declarations upon another account But it is no matter upon what account I came acquainted with them whatever it was this I learn'd into the bargain that Religion was the main pretence of their Rebellion or as J. O. expresses it their only design was to set on foot the great work of taking the Kingdom from men and giving it to Christ. But sure you think the Children of England as forward as the Boys and Girls of Scotland were when you suppose me formerly so well acquainted with Parliament Declarations I was no doubt an Arch-rebel when I was a School-boy and when I should have been conning my Lesson was drawing up Remonstrances and was at least one of Iretons Adjutatours and assistant at the penning the Armies Remonstrance from St. Albans Unless I were so pregnant a Youth it can scarce be suspected how I should be so well acquainted in former times with Parliament Declarations For unless this formerly relate to the time before his Majesties Restauration it loses its malice that is all it was intended for in that there can be no very great ground of suspicion of any great design of mischief in perusing them since however be that as it will this no doubt is susficient to bring J. O. off when he is plainly baffled and you have not one word to say in his defence then to drop any rude suggestion and that will or may serve turn to divert people from attending to the Argument Be it therefore known unto all men that J. O. had so much confidence and so little wit as to affirm that the Cause of Religion was not pretended or concern'd in the late War and that I have demonstrated this to be no less than impudent Leasing And so Sir you may proceed This horrid Catastrophe was twenty four long years ago and after an Act of Oblivion and for ought you can see it had been as seasonable to have shewn Caesars bloody Coat or Thomas a Beckets bloody Rochet Twenty four long years ago that is almost beyond my memory but if it had been so many hundred years ago and if J. O. had denied that the King was murther'd so long since by Fanatique Rebels I would have convicted him of impudence though there had been ten thousand Acts of Oblivion and if he had denied that Caesar too was murther'd I would have shewn his bloody Coat and when I have to do with the Papists I will hang out Thomas a Beckets bloody Rochet too it is a very good instance to shew the inconvenience of having the Clergy of any Kingdom subject to a foreign Power and if ever the Pope recover his Authority in England it will alwayes be so again and sometimes worse because they must be bound to obey his Decrees not only above but against the Kings Commands But yet whilst I have to do with Fanatiques such as J. O. and your self that instead of having any compunction for the late horrid Catastrophe discharge its guilt wholly from your selves upon the King and his Loyal Subjects to such I say I must and will shew the Scaffold at Whitehall Especially when notwithstanding it was twenty long years ago many of the same men that were notorious instruments in that bloody Rebellion are still in spite of gratitude and Mercy mustering up the People under their ancient Heads and old Principles Yes but the Chief of the Offenders have long since made satisfaction to justice Now you say something when you can assure us that they are hang'd indeed that whatever Harrison threatned at his execution is some competent security and I think for that reason the King for the time to come need never fear the same High Court of Justice that murther'd his Father We are satisfied then as to the good behaviour of all that are dead but can you undertake for the Survivers Oh yes no doubt For they are all so weary that he would be knockt on the head that should raise the first disturbance of the same nature This is only the security Mr. Calvin has given us for the peaceable deportment of single persons and it is very likely that if any one man should begin a Civil War he would be knockt on the head And I believe if Colonel Venner or the Cow-keeper though they had forty men to assist them should cry hey for Woodstreet hey for King Jesus it is not improbable but that they may have their brains beaten out But the thing we fear is lest whilst they take liberty to propagate their Principles and enlarge their Party they should in time grow once more into a body strong enough to fight the battels of the Lord and set up the Kingdom of Christ that is as J. O. has explain'd it a Common-wealth And what though at present you are so weary yet you may have time to gather breath and if you have then it seems we have no security when it is only your being tired and out of strength that keeps you from being unruly But what is it that you are so
thought of unless they may first be publickly declared innocent and then you know as well as I who are thereby declared guilty Here the conference begun and here it ended The Presbyterians themselves have printed an account of all proceedings of the Commissioners of both perswasions And there you may see that one of the first things proposed to them was that if they had any thing to object against the Liturgy as any way sinful and unlawful for us to joyn with it is but reason that this be first proved evidently before any thing be alter'd it isno argument to say that multitudes of sober pious persons scruple the use of it unless it be made to appear by evident reasons that the Liturgy gave the just grounds to make such scruples For if the bare pretence of scruples be sufficient to exempt us from obedience all law and order is gone To this what do they reply but that possibly it might be unlawful for them to impose it though not for others to joyn with them in its use when it was imposed Though for the proof of this they thought good to refer it as they still do all their disputes when they are baffled to the day of Judgment till which time they resolve to continue peevish and quarrelsome But if they had undertaken to prove it yet still it was but possible and that not upon the exceptions of wise men but the scruples of weak brethren to which it was replyed on the contrary we judge that if the Liturgy should be alter'd as is required not only a multitude but the generality of the soberest and most loyal Children of the Church of England would justly be offended since such an alteration would be a virtual confession that this Liturgy were an intolerable burden to tender Consciences a direct cause of Schism a superstitious usage which would at once both justifie all those which have so obstinately separated from it as the only pious tender Conscienced men and condemn all those that have adhered to that in Conscience of their Duty and Loyalty with their loss or hazard of Estates Lives and Fortunes as men superstitious schismatical and void of Religion and Conscience But for all this they boldly give in their exceptions against every part of the Liturgy not upon any pretence of Conscience but because it was not conformable enough to their own Directory and for that reason must the book of Common-Prayer be wholly laid aside and instead of it a new form of their own compiling imposed These were their least demands and they were very modest ones And no doubt but upon a little moderation and temper of things i. e. upon the least abatement to bring them off with Conscience though there was no such thing as Conscience pretended in the case and which insinuates into all men some little Reputation they would never have stuck out That is to say do but give them their wills to all intents and purposes and upon those terms it is possible they may condescend to an accommodation But what did these implacable Divines of the Church of England do to defeat this design of establishing a new Heaven and a new Earth Why to shew that they were men like others even cunning men revengful men beside their drilling on and trinkling out the foolish Act of Uniformity they made several unnecessary Additions only because they knew they would be more ingrateful and stigmatical to the Non-conformists v. g. in the Litany to false Doctrine and Heresie they added Schism though it were to spoil the Musick and Cadence of the Period This Bran is never to be refined and this obstinacy of the Clergy ever will be as it ever has been the greatest Obstacle of the Clemency Prudence and good Intentions of Princes and the establishment of their affairs When all things and all persons were so towardly prepared toward an accommodation if they would but once have consented only to abolish the establish'd Liturgy and set up a Geneva Directory and what had all that been had not they always been for the most bruitish and precipitate Counsels but instead of yielding to so reasonable a demand they like cunning and revengeful men foist in a new Prayer against Schism because they knew it would be stigmatical to the Non-conformists Though you knew the reflection lights purely upon the Church of England because as you have admirably demonstrated out of Mr. Hales Schism rhimes to Ism. But let them look to that your grievance is that they have spoiled the Musick and Cadence of the Period If they have far be it from me to patronize such Crimes I must confess I have no very good Ear but yet as far as I am able to discern the Period runs off as roundly as ever But if Schism do offend your ears yet however that is no offence to your Conscience though it seems Rebellion another word you might as well have excepted against is offensive to neither And now in this whole Affair compare the Precipitate Counsels of the Church of England with the yielding Temper of the Presbyterians and then judge you what Party it was that obstructed the Kings design of Accommodation He issues out his Commission to reform the Liturgy if there were any need now say the Presbyterians nothing will ever do it but our our old thorough way of Reformation utterly to abolish and lay it aside for ever that was their easie Method and the result of all their moderate Counsels No say the Bishops unless you will find something sinful and unlawful in the Liturgy we are well enough already and need nothing more than to join heartily in our Prayers to Almighty God against Schism and Rebellion And what could be more cruelly and revengefully done than to injoyn Presbyterians but to pray against Schism and Rebellion and rather than baâ—e them that though it were to save their Reputation spoil the Musick of a Period They will never leave these precipitate bruitish and sanguinary Counsels Neither the civil War nor the King's Return nor the softness of the Universities nor the gentleness of Christianity can make them wise or good-natured And though they have had so much experience how excessively the Non-conformists are to be obliged by Condescensions and how easily the last King won their hearts by yielding to their demands in so much that from the year 40. to 48. they would sooner have been knock'd on the head than have lift up an ill thought against him and had he not fatally ruined himself whether they would or no they had made him the most glorious King that ever wielded the English Sceptre What ungrateful Creatures then are these Church-canibals when the Non-conformists have all along done his Majesty such signal services yet now after such an happy Restauration happy I say because it did it self without their Officiousness they should not suffer him to comply with their Infirmities Nay they are grown so unreasonable that they
represented them would not have been very forward to approve or follow the Example because Royal Sense can never be much delighted with sitting upon the cold Snow The next is a Queen too and she almost as bold a Virago as the former whoever she was and it is the Queen of Sweden who said Io non voglio governar le bestie but afterwards resign'd But I don't believe she understood one word of Italian before she went to Rome or if she did it is certain the People of Sweden did not so that though she did speak to her People that displeasing word Bestie I do not see how that could cause her Resignation But the true and manifest Reasons of it were on her Subjects part their natural fierceness and inclination to wars that made them loath to be bestrid by a Petticoat and therefore they lean'd to her Kinsman the General and her declared Successour and on her own part a capricious desire of foreign Travel and Conversation with more refined wits But however from hence let Princes be instructed to flatter the meanest of the People lest if they speak contemptibly of them they depose them for their moroseness and want of breeding The next Novel is of the Revolt of Switzerland from the Emperour and its turning Common-wealth only upon occasion of imposing a civil Ceremony by a capricious Governour who set up a Pole in the high-way with a Cap upon the top of it to which he would have all passengers to be uncover'd and do obeysance But one sturdy Swiss that would not conform thereupon over-turn'd the Government as it is at large in history One sturdy Swiss that would not conform this is your Modern Orthodox Language that would not conform so Alexander the Great had almost lost all because he would force his Subjects to conform But to what would he not conform not to a Civil Ceremony a Civil Ceremony how much less to a Religious Ceremony that is no less than an as-it-were-a-Sacrament But however to give you the short of the story it runs thus The Switzers were declared a Free People some hundreds of years before for their good service against the Saracens and at the time you speak of they had no desire to renounce their dependence upon the Empire but upon the House of Austria as an Hereditary Fee And their casting off their Obedience to the Prefect sent by the Emperour Albert of that Family was contrived long enough before the Hat was set upon the Pole and this not by a Rout and Tumult but by the direction of the Chief Magistrate the Baron of Altinghuse But the Prefect knowing of the design to make short work of it set up the Cap and Pole as a tryal and discovery of the Malecontents So that this was no more the cause of their revolt than the Kings setting up the Royal Standard at Nottingham was of the long-Parliaments Rebellion who had before in several cases challenged and as far as they were able seised on his Power and by consequence deposed him from his Sovereignty From hence let wise Princes beware of forcing their Subjects to be uncover'd unseasonably i. e. whenever they have got a cold or are out of humour and it is good advice to the Parliament to have a special care that they injoyn not the Quakers nor others to put off their Hats whether in Courts of Judicature the Parliament House or Chambers of Presence nor injoyn them a Leg or a Cringe or a Bow as they love the Kingdom for one sturdy Swiss that woul'd not conform c. And that which is more material good Sir Pol. you may hence infer that they had need make a Law and Enact that no Wagg by any trick wile or stratagem in earnest or jest use any endeavours to make men put off their Hats as they pass by the three Poles at Tyburn for fear of turning the Kingdom into a Common-wealth again if they will be wise see the consequences and observe the Sea-marks for one sturdy Swiss that would not conform This is right Modern Orthodoxy and you had done well to have added the judgement of a Professour of it in the Corporation of Losarne scituate on the Lake of Lemane on what point of the Compass you Travellers are so critical I dare not determine though this I dare that it is not far from the Town of Geneva Viz. That it was well done of the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of that House had exercised more than ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Countrey as David might lawfully have kill'd Saul though he did forbear to do it lest he should give an example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by Ambition might be like enough to imitate against himself and his Royal Posterity The King of Spains losing Flanders is the last piece of News that makes up this Gazet and this hapned according to the information of your Correspondent by setting up the Inquisition But this story is so like that of Alexander the Great that I need only deny it and say that as Alexander dyed seised of all his Acquists and Conquests so neither has the King of Spain lost Flanders by the Inquisition because it is in force there to this day as you may see and feel too if you will but take a voyage to Ostend with an English Bible in your hand and talk there as freely of the Clergy of the Church of Rome as you have here of the Clergy of the Church of England And as for the United Provinces it is evident that he was stript of them by the Fate of War and whatever was the cause of the War was the occasion of his loss And that as it usually happens in the like cases was set on foot by divers concurrent accidents as bringing in Spanish and Italian Forces by Charles the fifth in his Wars against France a grievance unknown to the Flemmings in the Reign of former Princes and it was against these foreign Troops that the States made the first Remonstrance The natural Insolence of the Spaniards that could not but exasperate the peoples hatred against their pride and oppression The peculiar haughtiness of Philip the second that made him neglect and disoblige the Natives and confer all Offices of Trust and Honour upon Strangers His absence from the Provinces and leaving them to the Government of a subordinate Minister whereas they had always shared in the residence of all former Princes And if you will consult the Prince of Oranges Declaration in the head of his Army you will find the main grievance to be this that the States of the Provinces were forcibly restrain'd from holding according to custom their general Assemblies But besides all this the Netherlands were the very Sanctuary and Rendevouz of all the Calvinists from England France and Germany and the Anabaptists from Westphalia and other parts
Engagement in defence of the Parliament and Army meaning as they did that as the King was virtually in the Parliament so was the Parliament virtually in the Army And thus was their silly and sensless Distinction of the King 's personal and politick Capacity turn'd upon themselves And the same Articles and Demands that the Parliament sent to the King they sent to the Parliament and baffled all their Excuses by Precedents from their own Principles and Proceedings v. g. Their Charge against the eleven Presbyterian-members by the Example of the Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford when they pleaded that they could not legally procede against them till the particulars of their Crime were specified and so they acted over all the same Knavery again till they at length proceded to crown all their wickedness with the Kings murther But the fraud and malice the injustice and folly the impudence and hypocrisie of these men is so notorious that it need not be reported and yet so unconceivably horrid that it would scarce be credited They committed all the boldest impieties in the world not only under the greatest shews of Religion but by Authority of divine Impulse they still sought the Lord for all their wickedness and they were directed to all their Murthers and Perjuries by his deep and hidden discoveries of himself to his secret Ones They made no more of an Oath than other men do of a Complement they would swear an hundred times backward and forward to follow the Revolutions of Providence and the Rump when they had murthered the King absolv'd themselves by their own Vote from Perjury it was but voting the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to be null and void and they were as innocent as if they had never taken them But to say all in one word their Rebellion was not only against the King but against Monarchy it self that is to say against all Kings And I remember I have seen an humble Testimony for God in this perillous time by a few who have been bewailing their own and others Abominations and would not be comforted until their Redeemer who is holy be exalted in Righteousness and his Name which has been so much blasphemed be sanctified in the sight of the Nations subscribed by J. O. and some other secret ones In which having witnessed against all the Backslidings and Abominations of many from the Publick Good Old Cause and bemoaned the Rebuke that was poured forth upon the Rump and Barebones Parliament they procede to witness in all humility and fear against the setting up or introducing any Person whatsoever as King or chief Magistrate or an House of Lords or any other thing of like Import under what name or title soever or any other Power arising from the Nation as a Nation upon the old corrupt and almost ruinated Constitution apprehending that the great Work of taking the Kingdom from man and giving it to Christ hath had its beginning in the Revolutions we have been under And then positively they do witness for andhumbly assert that the Right of making and giving Laws unto Men is originally in God who hath given this Power as well as the Execution thereof unto Christ as he is the Son of Man and therein made universal Lord and Sovereign over the whole World and under Christ as his Ministers a certain number of men qualified and limited according to his Word ought to be set apart to the Office of chief Rule Government over these Nations as part of Christ's universal Kingdom So that you see J. O. is a profest enemy to the present Government of the State upon the same Principles that he is a Non-conformist to the present Establishment of the Church He is bound in Conscience to abhorr and oppose Monarchy in pure Obedience to the Institutions of Christ as King of Saints and Nations having appointed in his Word a certain number of Men to be set apart for the Office of chief Rule and Government over these and all other Nations in the World Now I think it is convenient that men who have openly witnessed such Principles as these should at least be bound to unwitness them before they are too confidently trusted by the present Government J. O. was absolutely for the divine Right of a Common-wealth but a very little before his Majesties Restitution for this Declaration was publish'd after the Cheshire Insurrection upon occasion whereof he threatens to witness with full evidence to the Conviction of all Upright ones against the abominable Malignity Treachery and Enmity of many in eminent Power and in the publick Ministry and then I dare appeal to your self whether it would not become him to recant such a positive Principle of Rebellion as this before he can with any modesty boast his own and his Parties Allegiance to the present Government At least if he refuse this when he is upbraided to it that is an undoubted evidence of his Constancy to his old Principles and then judge you whether it is fit for such a man to claim a Liberty of publick talking in any Common-wealth when he is under a tye of Conscience to subvert it And yet it was upon this occasion that I fell to preaching Repentance and calling for signal Marks and Acknowledgments c. when with all the scorn and indignation in the World he spit at my bare suspicions of their Loyalty in that as he has the confidence to affirm they give all the security for it that mankind can desire from their profest duty principle faith and doctrine And this Impudence I must confess provoked me to deal somewhat more roundly with him and to let him see how great and how many obligations himself and his party lay under to a publick Repentance Of all which you have taken no notice but only to wonder at my Insolence and that signifies nothing but only to shew your own The grounds and motives that I have laid before you to exhort you to this duty are plain and undeniable they are too many to be here repeated you may if you please find them in my Reply to J. O. from p. 629. to p. 641. If you can quit your selves of them as I am sure you never can I will give you as many more but till the old Scores are discounted there is no need of a new Reckoning and as you love your selves be advised never to call for any And now you see upon what reason I demanded signal Marks it was none of my own Motion but his Challenge though without that it had been pertinent and ingenuous enough unless they would learn more sober Principles However I had never taken any notice of his former Blasphemies had I not been driven to it by his own Impudence I was not so disingenuous as to object his or any mans personal Miscarriages to the disparagement of a publick Cause though you have raked up the faults as you suppose them of several particular Members of the Church of