be saved They presently therefore select their Clerks and depute their Delegates and Representatives to go and joyn with the Colledge at Jerusalem that so they might have a full Convocation and their Sentence thus assembled fully silenced all disputes and was to them a Rule and Canon to which they presently yield obedience Ald. But this was an Apostolical Canon therefore infallible because inspired Vic. I hope I shall obtain your pardon if herein I rectifie your mistake First Others went with Paul and Barnabas that were not Apostles Secondly The Council consisted principally of the Bishops of Judea whereof one to wit James of Jerusalem was President Finally Upon strict view of the whole we find that probably there were but four Apostles there to wit Peter and John who were there before and Paul and Barnabas sent from Antioch And this craving your Worships pardon I must look upon for my Rule Ald. But is not the Temporal above the Spiritual Power In all this that you have said there was no countermand of any Temporal Magistrate but in our discourse we supposed Mr. Mayor to have commanded the contrary Vic. Indeed Sir but that necessity enforces me to have respect to your Port rather than Wisdom I could be passionate to see you mistake Mr. Mayor for the King and think the Supreme Authority of the Land still confined to your own Corporation Should your Argument be put on to the full and urged with relation to the right Person you would put me an hard Chapter to read and I must submit or lose my Vicaridge But I hope a blind mans mistake will not put out others eyes Ald. Sir You are something too confident to conjecture me so old that I cannot see I tell you you have no establishment in the World without the Temporal Authority this supports you this gives you leave to perform your Ministry within the Kings Dominions This gives and confirms all your maintenance Vic. Indeed Sir we have great reason to thank Almighty God that he has given a this time a nursing Father to his Holy Church and that he not only permits Christianity but encourages it both by his owâ— example and liberal maintenance of both a able and Orthodox Clergy And I hopâ— whilst we remember our duty to the Churcâ— we shall never forget Loyalty to our King Ald. But he that will be Loyal to the King will submit also to Governours and those that are Commissioned by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well You seem to be very tender of his Majesty but you still forget the Mayor and Corporation Vic. I do think I have sufficient cause to remember them all days of my life and have once mentioned their liberality already I shall readily obey Mr. Mayor in all things that the King and Laws command a submission from me in Ald. You still have your Tacite Conditions and leave room for a mental Reservation Let me advise you to do in all things according as Mr. Mayor and the Corporation shall direct and let not a Lawn Sleeve prevail more with you than a Scarlet Gown Corporations make Parliament men and they make all the Laws and Give some credit to an old man Corporations upon the matter rule the Land and therefore have a care you do not wrong your self by affronting them Vic. I am so far from affronting of your Worships that I shall be ready upon all occasions to testifie my submission and reverence to you still with a salvo to mine own Conscience and that I may keep mine Oath of Canonical Obedience by which I have tied my self up to the Commands of my Diocesan in all lawful and honest things Ald. But stay a little I have one Argument beyond the care of any Bishops or any other that I know of for your total resignation to our disposal And that is That your income is not established by Law nor does any Bishop at all encourage Ministers that are in Market Towns but suffer them to labour without reward nay not only so but sometimes they have nothing for all their pains but severe stripes from their Officers And therefore you are more especially obliged to submit to our wills because your dependence is wholly upon them Vic. Sir I confess Interest is a great temptation especially to us that have little hope of larger Possessions should this be withdrawn from us but although I shal always be dutiful and obedient to your Worships I cannot violate the Obligation of mine Oath and Conscience both and so make a wound upon my self that the whole World cannot cure Ald. Come come Mr. Vicar I would advise you to escape that snare that some of your Predecessours have been entangled in and for want of a due reverence and submission have lost almost all their Benevolences Vic. Truly if it shall please your Worship we were better sustain some Temporal losses with the preservation and safety of a good Conscience though I should be very loath to incur your displeasure than by a violation of our Oaths to forfeit all our faithfulness and honesty here and hazard our welfare hereafter only to humour some few men and enjoy a something more plentiful Revenue Ald. All this will be readily granted but surely God Almighty has not tied us up so strict as that we must be religious to our own prejudice He never laced our Consciences so strait but that we might upon occasion widen them Alas this making Religion such a closs Garment causes it to become like Steel bodies that sometimes reduce the extravagancy of a shoulderblade but breed an Ulcer and Consumption in the Lungs If we weigh out but a pound of Prunes we allow Paper and Packthread with it If we sell but a Pipe of Wine we suffer the Vintner to be drunk into the bargain These Cases of Conscience have spoyled the World If you pursue the Consequence of your Discourse I think you will quickly condemn us all and then we shall not have the benefit of our Clergy Vic. Pray Sir be not so outrageous I do not at all sentence you but prove mine own Obligation and as a natural Son of the Church I must be dutiful and obedient to my Mother Do you think besides the Bond of my Relation an Oath to be so slight a thing as to be violated and broken with all the heat of passion and deliberate wilfulness and yet the person burdened and loaded with all this guilt to escape the imputation and the Crime of Perjury Ald. Pray Sir be modest in your Expressions and impute what you please unto your self but have a care that you speak not of Oaths in general lest you despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities Vic. Although Sir your Cautions and Commands would make any one that had not a great respect to himself and a greater for you warm with passion Yet I shall beg leave only to tell you that he that makes a Promissory
subjects himself to that Church from which before violently and without cause he made a Schism is no longer liable to the Civil Mulcts of those Penal Laws that concerned him before his Conversion so when these Canaanites or any part of them should relinquish their Idolls and devoutly resign themselves to the Worship of the God of Israel they were no longer concerned in the Penalties of the Laws against the Canaanites but might be capable of a Truce and League And should not the Law have been thus attended with condition there would have been no room left for Repentance and consequently the Almighty would have offered violence to his own Mercy which he has declared to be over all has works and is an Attribute in which he most delights Ald. But the very Action of God is enough at any time to justifie his Attributes and therefore I shall not much trouble my self with that yet methinks a Law so Vniversal must of necessity oblige to such a total destruction of those Nations that the League with the Gibeonites must needs be unlawful Vic. Let not Sir this Universality so much disturbe your Reason since I can easily exhibite an exception of particulars What do you think of Rahab that entertained the Spies was not she a Canaanite And yet she was preserved alive Josh 6.25 And what can you think of those which were not of the Children of Israel which remaining even in Solomons time were not destroyed but brought under Tribute 1 Kings 11. What do you think also of those Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer who inhabited amongst the Ephraimites and served under Tribute Josh 16.10 The same may also be concluded from the Gergasens Mat. 8.28 who continued to be a People even till our Saviours time for being omitted in those particular enumerations of the Adversaries of Israel that were by divine appointment to be rooted out we may rationally conjecture that they yielded at the first Ald. Well Sir that you may not think me alwaies wedded to mine own opinion but that I may by the power of Argument and Reason be sometimes divorced from my belief I must of necessity confess your instances have convinced me that this great Prohibition was Conditional and consequently not so Vniversal as I supposed it But what was the League then which was prohibited Vic. To answer this I must distinguish of a double League there is a Social League such as one Prince makes with another upon honourable and sometimes advantageous terms to both and this was simply forbidden but there is a League with a conquered Enemy as upon the yielding a Town to the Besiegers or a whole Nation becoming Tributary to a Conquerour and such a one might be struck with those that relinquishing their Idolatry were in the nature of Proselytes and submitting themselves would pay Tribute to the Israelites which I take at first to be the case of the Gibeonites Ald. But if you have rightly stated the difference betwixt the Israelites and the Nations methinks 't is somewhat strange that Joshua seemed so much concerned for his surprize and that the whole Congregation should so severely murmur against their Princes for swearing to these Gibeonites Vic. All this may very well be reconcilable with our precedent discourse for the Princes having made this League and bound it by an Oath and not according to their duty enquired of God they might fear a Judgment for than omission and this might be the cause of their discontent and murmuring Ald. But why should Joshua after the League then pronounce them accursed and condemn them to the slavery of the Temple to be Hewers of wood and Drawers of water if the unlawfulness of the League and Oath had not caused a burden to his Conscience Vic. That I hope your Worship will no longer object when you shall understand it to be an effect of Justice It was a punishment for their deceipt and falshood insinuating subtily their remote dwelling when they were indeed their near Neighbours So that by this I hope you discerne how much your canting Objector but malicious Traitor would have imposed upon you in urging this Oath of Israel to the Gibeonites as a motive for you to keep the Covenant when there was not so much as the resemblance of Parallel the Covenant being evidenced to be impious and unlawful but the League and Oath in relation to the Gibeonites has been sufficiently proved valid and good I hope for the future you will be so just to your self as well as your Office to punish such insinuating Cheats that under the pretense of Piety and Religion and winning Souls to Jesus Christ as they call it most scandalously to the ruine both of Church and State instill poysonous Principles into the minds of men that swell them up to Tumult and Rebellion and would as you see if possibly they could infuse their venome into the subordinate Magistrates that they growing big with Saintship should extend beyond their just proportion and their own esteem should render then better than their Prince and consequently he would be so vile in their eyes that his Laws should first appear ridiculous and so not being the effects of Wisdom would be unfit to be executed and then his Person must be first contemned and afterwards set aside or murdered Ald. I hope their Principles are not altogether so bad as you make them I am apt to think that they themselves are convinced by those Arguments which they enforce to others and therefore impute all their miscarriages to their weakness rather than their obstinacy and all may be though it proves unfortunate in the expression and those consequences that are deduced from their Principle the effect of good meaning But to leave such discourse because you know at present they may be bold having almost the same priviledge with your selves Since this Non-conformist has given you this trouble by his Objection I would have you endeavour to requite him by exhibiting an example that may convince the truth of your former Position that an unlawful Oath is not Obligatory and binds to nothing but Repentance by this means you shall discharge your debt to him by putting him to the expense of an answer or for defect of that to be liable to the disparagement of a baffle in his own Trade As also you will by this carry on your main design of confirming and strengthening that belief which you have been a means to raise in me Vic. Although Sir I would evince my self to be more a man than to be at all jealous of anothers affection yet methinks by your discourse I have too much reason to suspect the Non-conformists to be Rivals to the Church of England in relation to the winning your Judgment and Opinion But because I should be injurious to my self in disturbing mine own peace as well as disobedient to you in a denial of my duty should I at all protract an answer to your Commands An example now presents it self to
a Vine fenced in not only by an immediate Providence but it s own Laws and Authority to enforce them are not only that which supports the branches but also defends the very root Now withdraw but the Obligation and sense of obedience and all the branches will desert the root the Foxes will devour their present fruit and the wild Bore will dig up the root and thus shall the whole languish and decay Ald. But cannot you prove some other way than from the nature of Government in the general that obedience is due to the Churches Laws This seems only to be composed of good words without significancy of an Obligation Vic. I had thought to discourse from Principles of Policy had been the surest way to convince you because your Age and Wisdom have called you to the degree of an Alderman by which sharing in Authority and Government you would from the view of your own experience collect the misery and destroying fate of the least disorder much more when disobedience dares put off her Mask and come abroad with open face hurling all into an Ataxy and Confusion when an embodied Society have agreed upon certain Laws and Principles by which they have both constituted and impowered a part of the whole to take care of the rest wherein particular interests are alwaies to submit to the preservation of the general commerce and universal welfare If the actings of particulars shall not only appear disorderly and mutinous but the very Magna Charta the foundation of the Government shall be undermined by a flat denial of any Obedience or Homage due it must needs dissolve the very Principles make the Empire crack with its weight and burden and reduce this Community into an universal Chaos Ald. But since your Office is Divinity and you are not called to any place of trust in the Government of the State it will as seems to me best become you to keep within your own Confines and tread only upon holy ground Vic. Why I hope your Worship does not think your Office prophane Ald. No Friend but I think you will prophane my Authority if you dare not withstanding all my advice be skill'd in the Principles of Policy and Government and lay down Rules of Confinement to your Superiours I must not suffer my sage ears so far to disparage my head as to endure to hear one to teach me mine own Trade Pray prove obedience to your Church some other way than from Rules of Policy for by this you seem to encroach upon us so far as not only to take away our Priviledges and Prerogative but defraud us of the very Arguments to defend us Vic. If your Worship please but to keep one eye open for the Churches Cause and let your other sleep to your own Interest I suppose I may in mine own habit without any damage at all to your Ears in a few words evince my duty of submission and obedience to the Church even from the second Topick mentioned that Obedience to it is our duty Ald. That I would have not only promised but performed for I have sometimes seen Reasons where the Stems have weighed more than the fruit Vic. Now your Worship seems to be pleasant a man would scarce expect such light wit from so grave an head but experience is that which makes men rich in all things And yet that I may remember your Worship of some thing which you already know I shall not trouble you with the ready submission though uneasie obedience by reason of those raging and persecuting thorns from Jewish Malice and Heathen Fury which continually like the Souldiers Spear in our Saviours Side tormented and grieved them unto the Christian Church in its Bishops and Representatives in its first plantation though not without the publick assaults of open Hereticks no more than free from the secret thrusts of those that seemed bosome Friends But I know you expect Scripture should be judge and prove what it seems you account a Problem For the Jews submission to their Sanhedrim I hope you will not trouble your self so much as to doubt Nor for the Apostles subjection to our Saviour as to him who had the Government upon his shoulders who received his Jurisdiction and Authority from the Father and was anointed from above Nor will you question I suppose the submission of the Christian Church to the Discipline as well as Doctrine of the Apostles whom Christ invested with the same Authority that he had received from his Father in relation to their Presidency and Jurisdiction over the Church in that Consecration of His As my Father sent me so send I you Only perhaps you may still doubt whether this Rule and Authority requiring submission and subjection to its Decrees was conveighed from the Apostles to others But you will have no cause to mistrust that neither when you shall seriously reflect upon the Epistles of the Apostles to the several Churches and more especially to those Angels and Bishops who were there intrusted with the Discipline and Government as well as feeding the Flock of Christ which he had purchased with his bloud Or if you will observe matter of fact and from thence draw the certainty of our Conclusion You may read St. Paul sending his Orders to Timothy and Titus giving them directions how to govern the Diocesses of Crete and Ephesus And it would be endless to enumerate all the Exhortations and Commands to obey our Church Rulers Obey them saies the Apostle that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account This last Clause plainly restrains it to the Bishops of Judea and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saies St. Chrysostome But in the fifteenth of the Acts you have enough to silence all doubts of this nature and bring your Worship not only to Reverence but to a resignation of your self as to your Souls direction and guidance into the Churches hands and then you will the easier dispense with us for obeying that so chearfully and fideliously which we earnestly perswade others to a submission to Ald. I like this discourse indifferently well only have a care that your Church does not intrench upon the Authority of our Town and compel the Corporation to come and bow to your Altar Vic. I le warrant your Worship by the grace of God if you can but defend your selves from the Womens Tongues you shall not be offended with Church Musick nor knock your shins when you bow towards the Altar Ald. Come on then pleasant Mr. Vicar let us hear the conclusion of this matter you promised me something out of the fifteenth of the Acts. Vic. I did so Sir and by Gods help I shall perform it we find there that there was a great difference arose at Antioch about Circumcision for it seems there had come down men from Judea who taught the Brethren that except they were Circumcised after the manner of Moses they could not
look out the place Ald. But why do you look at the beginning Surely 't is not in Genesis Vic. No I know that nor yet whence the Phanaticks usually fetch their Arguments in the Revelation but I would fain know where it was Printed Ald. And what was the place Vic. Where womens Bibles use to be Printed at Geneva Ald. That I have heard frequently commended for an holy City Vic. Very like but I hope you will hear it so no more lest Innovation and Rebellion should be stamped for Piety and John Calvin get into red Letters Ald. I know not who that Calvin was but I have heard him very well spoken of in the Pulpit Vic. That may be when Rebellion and Murder was in fashion Ald. I fear this diverting discourse makes you forget the Text you are looking after Vic. No Sir whilest we are talking of Geneva I must of necessity mind the Gibeonites Now I have found it There is the Story in the ninth of Joshua If your Worship please to put on your spectacles you may consult the Text your self Ald. That I shall I have been something long reading over the Story both because it makes a whole Chapter and also because I would willingly weigh all Circumstances lest any thing through my treacherous memory should escape the Objection which the Gentleman I told you of urged to me the other day Vic. In that you do what very well becomes your Place and Grandeur not to speak any thing rashly and unadvisedly But pray Sir what is your Argument Ald. It is in brief this We find the Israelites making a League with the Gibeonites which by the Story appear to be part of those that Israel was not to be at peace with this League was sealed to them by an Oath and so it was properly as the Apostle saies the end of all strife Now this Oath must of necessity be unlawful because contrary to God's Command of the total extirpation of those Nations And yet the Israelites think themselves obliged to keep this Oath notwithstanding the illegality of it Ver. 19. Nay to confirm beyond all contradiction the Obligation of the Oath not only from the reason of the Princes of the Congregation we have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel now therefore we may not touch them but because somewhere I am sure in David's time we find Almighty God visiting the Land with three years Famine and the reason of the judgment is particularly expressed because contrary to their Oath Saul slew the Gibeonites Vic. The Text is in 2 Sam. 21. at the beginning Is this the strength and force of your Argument Ald. Yes and I wish you may be able to give an answer to it Vic. That I hope your Worship shall not have much cause to fear But methinks I cannot but admire that clemency which is still kind to such prodigious Traitors who dare yet and that to a person of your Port who are an Alderman of a Town and a Justice of the Peace urge such an Argument as this for the establishment of such an accursed thing as the Covenant was that has been plainly demonstrated by several Pens to be totally destructive of the established Government both in Church and State Are such as these think you safely tolerated When they conjecture that Obligatory which brings the Kings Head to a Block and binds them to kill all the Bishops Deans and Prebends if they cannot otherwise extirpate the Hierarchy Ald. I am sorry to see you thus in a rage to express so much of imprudence and passion against those people who may be again in a capacity to do you Mischief Let the higher Powers look to the answering your Objection and do you look to answer mine for you are not like to escape so Vic. No Sir I will not now be bribed to silence though your Worship in those cases do very frequently command me But the reflection upon such ruinous consequences does not a little disturbe me Ald. I plainly perceive you to be in a Passion Vic. Yes Sir though age has cast a mist over your eyes you are easily able to see mine infirmities and every moate that is mine eye you would be angry if I should tell you that you have a Beam in your own Ald. And I have reason too Vic. I shall not at all question your reason but yet I think your sight may fail when you take a little Mouse for a Mountain and an ugly Dog-fish for a Royal Sturgeon Ald. I fear your passion has transported you to madness Vic. No Sir it is Zeal entranced and sublimated by a Chymical operation Ald. I cannot imagine what your meaning is Vic. Nor I yours to think this Example of the Gibeonites so potent an Objection that you doubt whether it admits of any answer Ald. Pray let me know then from you what may be powerful enough to invalidate it Vic. That you shall without any more protraction Your Argument Sir supposes the League made with the Gibeonites to be altogether unlawful Ald. Yes that it does and with reason too because God had prohibited it Vic. But all Prohibitions are not Universal for some being qualified with certain conditions become thereby restrained Ald. Yet this will not admit of such an evasion for saies God Take heed to thy self lest thou make a Covenant with the Inhabitants of the Land whither thou goest lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee Vic. I know the place very well It is in Exod. 34.12 But if you well observe those words you have recited there is contained in them a full solution of your doubt Ald. That is what I cannot discern and shall be very glad if you can make that Assertion good Vic. I cannot well fail in this where the condition is so manifest and apparent You know in all Statutes the Preface contains the reason of Enacting and therefore an Act of Parliament is usually interpreted by the Preamble and the design and intent of any Law is to be discovered from the cause and reason of its Sanction Thus is it in the case in hand God prohibites a League with these Nations lest it should prove a snare to the Israelites Ald. This seems to me to confirm the Prohibition to be general Vic. No Sir for if you please to look farther into the Text at the 14 and 15 verses you shall find that the reason why a League with any of the Inhabitants might prove a snare to Israel was because by their example and familiarity the Israelites might be drawn to the Commission of Idolatry Which is also the same reason again repeated in Deut. 7.4 when the cause of this fear then ceaseth the Prohibition is vacated where the reason of the Law is totally withdrawn Ald. But how could the reason of this Law cease when 't is notoriously known that the Canaanites were most grand Idolaters Vic. Just as a Fanatick when he becomes a Convert to the true Religion and
by giving them some other preferment as an addition to their slender livings encourage our Ministers and so withdraw all inconveniences that in their present condition usually attend them Vic. I cannot so much doubt of that charity which I have alwaies found eminent in your Worship as to think you design this Argument under a pious pretense to save charges But yet methinks you do with too much eagerness pursue the Reverend Bishops Priviledges for they have Chaplains that are for the most part learned men and far more deserving than we poor Vicars that have not money to buy those Books which they are able to read and digest that must alwaies have the best preferments that fall in the compass of their Lords Donation Besides the Bishops have Kinsmen and Friends Add to this that these are waies by which they commonly oblige persons in Authority and Power by disposing some of these Livings to their Chaplains and Acquaintance Therefore unless we can find out some other way I fear there will be little hope from this Ald. But there are some little sine-Cures and small Livings that so great persons of such interest in the Bishops will not care to accept of and these methinks may befriend Corporations Vic. How do you mean that Corporations should be enriched with the spoyls of these Ald. No Sir I would not be accounted so Sacrilegious but that those that have the care and burden of exercising their Ministry in great Towns where their duty and work becomes enlarged but their reward narrow and contracted should proportionable to their Learning and Piety have some of these bestowed upon them as a supplement and encrease to their short Revenues Vic. Now I perfectly understand you and shall leave you to perswade them to it In the mean time because I think your Petition may miscarry what do you think of this way Let all Corporations throughout England that send Burgesses to Parliament desire those that serve there for their particular Burroughs to cause a Bill to be drawn up and therein to appoint Commissioners to Assess in all Market Towns by an equal pound rate that pay under an hundred pound per annum to their Minister to the value of this hundred pound to be from year to year collected and recovered by Law to their Ministers use and this will be a moderate but certain establishment Ald. Truly I shall be very willing to promote so pious and religiose a work but I fear many Townsmen will presently endeavour to obstruct and hinder it Vic. That will not be within their power if the principal persons in Towns are for it Ald. But what do you think of the Non-conformists interest in such a concern as this is Vic. Truly Sir I think it is not their interest at all to have such a thing accomplished because then there being an able and pious Ministry established in Towns where you know is their greatest confluence their Dagon must of necessity fall before the Ark of God for their Teachers will be effectually confuted in publick baffled and consequently disgraced in private and their Proselytes will daily fall off from them and be won again to Christianity and Religion Ald. But they say they have Friends above and they making their applications to them by some craft or other will get the Bill to be thrown out of the house or else protract it at a Committee so long 'till the Session be at an end Vic. I heard indeed they did something much like it the last Session but I could hardly believe the truth of the report because 't is to me a very difficult matter to believe any thing almost that such persons are either the Actors or Relators of Ald. Why should you be of so little faith Vic. Strange methinks that the talking of persons of their Character should by a kind of Sympathy put your dress into Scripture Phrase in common discourse But the reason why I suspended my belief was because in their Actions they are commonly Hypocrites and in their Words Liars They will not swear nor if they do will they perform Nor will they drink hard amongst the Wicked as they stile the Kings most Loyal Subjects but with the Saints it may be lawful to enjoy the Creature 'till they are not able to enjoy themselves Some of them that abhor Drunkenness do take a wonderful delight in Gluttony for their Teachers greasing their mouths well makes their Tongues the more slippery And as I am informed have taken up a new way of wishing health not by the Ceremony of a Glass of Wine or Cup of Bear but eating a good full Morsel for Ceres is as good a Friend to Venus as Bacchus and is alwaies less scandalous But I cannot but wonder that you should think such as these to be so powerful with the Parliament Do you suppose that they have many Friends there Ald. I do not know the number of their acquaintance but this I can say that they are the most vainglorious boasters in the World if they are not assured of some interest now and have larger hopes if this Parliament were but once dissolved Vic. As to that we must leave it to the discretion and will of his Majesty and in the mean time we cannot but praise Almighty God that has raised us up not only a nursing Father to his Church but convened so many pious Patriots that like so many Pillars in his holy Temple have hitherto supported the Fabrick notwithstanding all the raging winds and storms And this not without exceeding great justice legible in the largest Characters of his Providence that as an House of Commons by Violence and Usurpation did once deform and ruine his Church so an House of Commons should now be made the grand Instrument to rebuild and support it But if these noble and indulgent Patriots of our beautiful and well-constituted Church should either by accident or policy be dismissed which way could the Fanaticks designs that are so destructful in themselves and can no longer with Fauxe's fire-works be obscured in a Vault of Secresie but become visible and manifest to all now take effect and prosper in the midst of such a World as must needs be cautious and like the burned child dread the fire Ald. The same way they did before Vic. Say you so Sir And must the old Game be played over again that has lost so many fair Estates and been apparent to the World in colours of Bloud That has made the Church crackle with its Ruins and weltered a Nation in its own Gore that by treading upon the Miter got high enough to twitch off the Crown and bring a Sacred head unto the Block Ald. I do not say that all those effects will follow nor are causes supposed so unavoidably to be linked together as to be alwaies the Fathers of such Children Vic. If the old Rule in Logick hold That the Causes being exhibited and put into order the effects will follow we have
it then become impossible since Ald. Yes that it is because of the encrease of their numbers and the boldnes and courage they have acquired Vic. Your Worship and your Brethren are to have thanks given to you for that for giving them encouragement by your lenity and forbearance when the Laws were sufficiently valid and you under the greatest obligation to enforce and execute them It is a sad thing that men will make so many excuses now who to my knowledge in the late times were sufficiently active to execute the Impositions of tyrannical Usurpers notwithstanding the numbers of those that wished the King well bore a greater proportion to those Army Myrmidons than the Fanaticks do to us now But what are these formidable numbers 'T is true they make them appear as dreadful as they can for every one of them has his mouth full of fire and brimstone that they blow forth continually upon us and both in their Writings and Conventicles make as great a shew as possibly they are able But you may see by this that their numbers are not so formidable as they would endeavour to make us believe for their Teachers were not so very many that refused Conformity and yet you have to every little sneaking Conventicle no less than five or six waiting Chaplains that are maintained for the most part from what the good women steal from their Husbands besides several of them had Temporal Estates and are wary enough to keep close to their own Families for fear the Law may reach them when the others poverty makes them venturous We were best after a while run away from a nest of Snakes because they put out their tongues or be afraid of a flock of Geese because they hold out their necks and hiss at us Would you that are in Authority but a little discountenance these insinuating Companions and discharge your Oath upon the Leaders of the Factions you would find the Multitude melt and dissolve like Snow against the Sun and we need no longer be afraid of Tumults and Insurrections But admitting their numbers to be great and insolent I cannot imagine how the execution of the Laws becomes impossible Are they become so spiritual that they are invisible too Or do not their bold Pragmaticks often enough walk the Streets Or is not a Serjeant in Divinity sufficiently known when he has alwaies the Formality of his Coife on Is not the Law still the same that it was have you not the same Authority and way to execute it the same Officers and Power to attend you Had you ever yet a prohibition from your Superiours that might discharge the Obligation of your Oath Did not the House of Commons with their Speaker before them petition his Majesty to set forth his Royal Proclamation to command you to execute the Laws in force against these Meetings and unlawful Assemblies And does not your Oath that is so sacred and solemn that when wilfully neglected and openly violated must inevitably bring eternal vengeance upon the contemners head yet remain obligatory in the highest Though no man can be obliged to an impossibility yet a Promissory Oath must bind him to the utmost of his power and ability And can you say that you have acted to the utmost of your strength or according to those seasons and opportunities that are daily put into your hands If not never conjecture your Plea of Impossibility will be sufficient to excuse your negligence and indifferency Ald. Well Mr. Vicar you have argued this last point home not only to my Capacity but Conscience and though I must confess my self sufficiently galled yet I shall not wince at my conviction You have a strange faculty in perswasion I never thought to have been brought to this trouble Vic. Trouble Sir It should be your delight to be strict and diligent in the performance of your duty and your greatest trouble must be that you have been no less troubled for the breach of your Oath You cannot say what I perswade you to is impossible to be done without a stain and blot upon your Oath and consequently your honour as a Justice of the Peace for you know you are always new sworn in this Corporation as well as chosen once a year and surely the putting the Laws in execution is no more impossible at this time than it was last Michaelmass either then your Oath was unlawful it binding you to what was impossible when you took it or else it is still most severely obligatory notwithstanding all your pretended impossibility Let courage therefore and a pious resolution shine like Jewels in the midst of your titles and let not the breach and violation of an Oath make your Bed sometime or other prove your Grave and your Grave a worser torment But duly execute his Majesties most pious and just Laws that are as well the Pales of the Church as the Bulwarks of the Kingdom Ald. But you know we are Justices of the Peace and the design of mine Office is only for the peace and welfare of this place and consequently as a part of the whole Kingdom Now when my judgment tells me that the execution of the Laws will more tend to the ruine and destruction of our peace and quietness by the provocation and disturbance of these persons than the forbearance certainly I am excused from the Obligation of mine Oath in that respect Vic. I am not Sir of your opinion in relation to what you now propose nor do I conjecture that the executing the Laws against Conventicles and unlawful Assemblies will at all disturbe but very much settle the peace and tranquillity of the Kingdom For their numbers are not yet so great but that they may with facility be suppressed without any breach upon our present quiet would the Justices of Peace lend their assistance and Command their Constables and inferiour Officers to seize and apprehend the principal Actors that they may be brought to the Bar of Justice to receive their Sentence and condign punishment For substract but the number of women and children that are uncapable of resistance from the total sum of these bold Usurpers and Violaters of the Law and abate for the want of ability of some by reason of their Age and the defect of courage and resolution in others and we need not fear the power of the rest there will remain so inconsiderable a number to be encountred with Finally add to all this that they are for the most part persons who are inconsiderable in their interest being Tradesmen and Handicrafts so that if their Drum should beat and their Trumpets sound sedition and tumult it could be none other than a Prologue to their final destruction But if none of these Pleas could possibly with any reason be made you are not in your Office to be a Judge of what is a mean to promote or continue the Publick Peace for your Sentence is not proper in this cause unless you were a Privie Counsellor but
the Laws you are sworn to are to be your Director and unless you receive a prohibition from him who has the Supreme Executive as well as Legislative Power of the Kingdom your Oath whatever may either through fear self-inteterest or indulgence to others be pleaded to the contrary will oblige you upon no less danger than the ruine of your soul to do what in you lies to discharge it Ald. But our livelihood is in this totally concerned We that are Tradesmen should we be severe in the execution of the Laws against these persons we must of necessity be undone for we should lose a great part of our Custom Vic. Methinks your Worship is just like a person quite shipwracked you catch with such greediness at every little Planke and and Oar and I hope I have almost vanquished all your Arguments and Doubts and hewed down the main Pillars of the House you do so prop up your building with Poles and Faggot-sticks Do you not yet consider that the welfare of your soul is to be preferred before not only your Estate but your Life too What advantage is it that I may put to you our Saviour's Question to gain the whole World and to lose your own soul This is so precious a Jewel that it is not capable of barter or exchange All your torment for the gaining of an Estate here is only to make your Posterity rich and what benefit can you reap from their temporal welfare and prosperity Your body will lie rotting in a grave and that Vault will be too obscure and dark for you to see through and take a prospect of your Families splendour There cannot possibly be the least reflection from their honour and advancement here upon you when lodged in your bed of earth and crumbled into Dust and Vermine And then to have your Soul eternally miserable and to salute your body in fire and flames at the great and glorious Morning of the Resurrection because you have neglected your Obligations here both to God your King and his holy Church only to secure your present Possessions or to heap up Riches for future Generations this is relinquishing the highest Heaven for a poor contemptible spot of Earth Methinks Sir you should be better skilled in your own Trade than to exchange the Pearl of preat price for small contemptible and perishing Commodities to barter Diamonds for Bristol stones and with the Indians to to sell the finest Gold for a small piece of painted Glass If the severest Duties and strictest Obligations of most solemn Oaths may thus be dispensed with when Interest stands in competition with them we then certainly never yet understood our Religion nor is the Gospel of our Saviour the way to Heaven nor will the Gates of that glorious City be ever opened to the Practicers of Christianity For if we make a narrow search into those eternal Precepts of the great Author and Contriver of our Religion as well as Redeemer and Purchaser of our lives and ransom we shall find next to a belief in our Saviour that they consist in mortifying our Appetites Passions and Desires in withdrawing our Affections from too eager a pursuit of this World in a blessed contentation with our present Lot that turns Earth into Heaven and Paradise in a due and constant obedience to our Superiours a strict observation of our Promises and Vows and there must not be with us yea and nay 'T is a wonder to me that St. Peter should be blamed for denying his Master if any interest might dispense with duty or that the Primitive Martyrs had not been more wary than to burn their bodies when they were no acceptable Sacrifice Our Saviour I am sure was obedient to the death and has assured those of their unworthiness of himself or any of those advantages that he has brought to an ungrateful World if they love their Relations better than himself Believe it Sir God and Mammon Christ and Belial cannot both be served and obeyed and if you will obey the Commands of one you must not become a slave to the other I cannot but admire that a person of your Port and Gravity would once mention such an Objection as this that sets a Temporal Interest against a Spiritual advantage as if it were ponderous enough to encline the balance both of Faith and Reason Shall a great and solemn duty be neglected to which you are obliged by the bond of an Oath in which either your laziness or contempt execrates all your own felicity and abandons your everlasting bliss only for the Pelf and glittering Dust of a ruinous and tottering World This is making a God of Mammon prostration before the Golden Image and adoring a pitiful lump of clay But what should I argue thus with a Christian You are baptized and therefore have renounced the World as well as the Flesh and the Devil and therefore I hope this Objection started from you through weakness and inadvertency only and was not the effect of Judgment or Premeditation nor can you conjecture that Private Interest is of that concern with Almighty God as to be potent enough to release you from the least duty much less from the great and most strict Obligation of an Oath And yet that I may endeavour to obviate all Evasions even to those that may not have so deep and prevalent a sense of duty You know by reason of my Residence and Function in this Town I am acquainted with almost all sorts of Tradesmen Ald. I know you are Vic. They tell me then that indulgence of the Justices to Fanaticks does not at all encrease their Custome or support their Trade nor will any Obligation engage those men to buy any where but there where they may have the best bargain And that which enclines me to a belief of this is that prodigious covetousness and Jewish griping that I have observed in the most of them as if it were riveted in their very Religion for they pretend abstinence to save the expenses of hospitality and good neighbourhood and so become in their way religious only that they may save charges Nor can I at all wonder at these mens avarice as long as they have so much of pride and humour to maintain So that as your interest and livelihood were it concerned is not enough to weigh down your duty and Oath even that cannot be much damnified by your Justice and Severity to those persons For somewhere or other they must buy and if your goods be most merchantable and best cheap you will not fail of these Customers If not all the art and skill that you have all the favour and kindness you can shew them shall never be arguments prevalent enough to draw them into your noose and snare For there are no persons under the Canopy of Heaven that are better skill'd in the arts and tricks of cheat and cousenage than themselves and therefore will easily discern the little wiles that you lay for them Ald.