Beloved as I came hither I saw that place of Idolatry naming the Cathedral Ah! poor Souls A pitiful man I warrant him thought I with my self that live in that place of Superstition what will become of you but you my friends are not in darkness but under the precious Sunshine of the Gospel-Light And so he went on And in truth the treatment which these Sacred and Venerable Places met with in the time of their Empire is sufficient to convince us of that respect and kindness they have for them Our Lord upbraids the Wicked Jews for making the House of God which was to be a House of Prayer for all Nations a Den of Theeves and a house of Merchandize what may we then think of those Men who once made St. Pauls whose very Ruins are one of the Wonders of the World not only a publique Exchange and a Den of Theeves but of Murderers a stable for Horses far more innocent Beasts and less Brutish than their Riders and if ever there were Hippocentaurs in the World it was they for the Horse and Man were both of a piece It were a pretty Subject for a Romance and so great was the impiety that future Ages will scarcely believe it any other to relate the Pious Adventures of the Knights Errant of those dayes what fierce Battels they had with the painted Glass Windows with Christ and his twelve Apostles the Saints and Martyrs Where-ever they met with them they were sure to suffer in Effigie How many right Doughty Knights they overthrew and kill'd over and over after they had been dead some Ages only because their Superstitious Marbles were in the idolatrous posture of Kneeling and more certainly Praying to some Popish Saint in the neighbouring window In vain was it that they had taken Sanctuary in those Holy Places they could not protect themselves nor be at rest till by their looking like Skeletons they gave an ample testimony to all that saw them that they were Dead and as they thought beyond the hopes of a Resurrection though God be praised in that particular they were no true Prophets and we have seen those dry Bones live and flourish again Long may they do so Long live and flourish And here I cannot omit a pleasant passage which happened at a place where Ireton had his Quarters in the late times and which I have since seen In his zeal against Images at the Church whose windows were very Beautiful he made all the twelve Apostles and many other Saints suffer a second Martyrdom only the Picture of the old Dragon vomiting the Flames of Hell out of his Mouth was spared and for old acquaintance left intire and undefaced which was then by the Inhabitants taken notice of and who was his Saint not without applying the proverb Like to Like quoth the Devil to the Collier But had these Men power I am satisfied they could make good use of the Places even the same that Judas would have had made of the precious Oyntment Jo. 12.5 sell them and give them to the Poor and 't is easie to guess who those are for though they abhor Idols Rom. 2.22 as they account these places yet they think it no Sin to commit Sacriledge and we may remember that some of the Cathedrals were once exposed to Sale though as it was observed the gains the purchasers made of their Bargains was like Aurum Tholosanum which made all those who had it die Beggars and miserable But the Persons are their greatest Eye-sore being as they complain Goads in their Sides and Thorns in their Eyes the Houses and Inheritance might do them good if the present owners were but dispossessed of them and at this they strike fair whilest they perswade the People all they can that the present Office of a Bishop as it is in use in the Church of England is a meer humane invention That by the Bible Bishops and Presbyters are all one That they Lord it over the Flock of Christ and that their Authority which with so much Rigor they Exercise over the Church of God and especially over tender Consciences and good Men is a meer Tyrannical Vsurpation upon the Liberties of their fellow Labourers in the Gospel They are not altogether so busie upon this Theme in Publique as formerly they were when their Tongues were their own and there was no Lord over them not so much as Soveraign Lord or Lord Bishop to restrain them which were brave Dayes of Liberty indeed But I make no Question but they ply it in Private and I am the apter to believe it because the unwary now and then blab it out And it was but the other day that one of this Tribe a little heated with discourse could say before a great many Persons of a contrary Judgment to his What do you think the Bishops fit to govern the Church undoubtedly He did not nor do any of them and had not his fear pull'd him by the sleeve and given a check to his overforward Tongue no doubt but he would have produced all the strong Reasons of the Cabal for the proving of the Negative And this I dare confidently affirm that there is not one in a hundred of them who have drunk of this Poison but hate the present Office if not the Person of a Bishop who may have done them much Good but never any injury and possibly one whom they never saw in all their Lives Did the Commons of England understand what great Immunities and Priviledges they possess by the perswasions and powerful influences of some former Bishops upon our Kings and the Laws they would find that they have a great deal of Reason to Love and Honour the present Bishops for the sake of their Predecessors My Design being not so much to pretend to the full Determination of Controversies as to discover the secret practices of these dangerous People I will not undertake the Quarrel nor undervalue those Reverend Fathers of the Church by taking up the Gantlet for them lest under the pretence of doing them Justice by my ill Managery of so great and good a Cause I might affront and injure both them and it I was always of the Opinion that every man is not a fit Combatant for all Truths and I have not yet shaken hands with that Modesty which hitherto has made me esteem my self of their Number who may want Ability rather than Will or Courage to do them service And indeed as they are sufficiently able without calling Auxiliaries to their assistance they have already several of them vindicated their own Cause Office Institution Succession and whatever does concern them so learnedly fully and Effectually that it were but to light a Candle to the Sun for me to go about it Leaving them therefore to the Management of their own Affairs let us return to our Propose and having heard what are the Opinions of these Dissenters concernign the Places and Persons we now come to take their
it should be so You are Men of Peace and Religion certainly you have no other Sword but that of the Spirit Marp A Worm if it be troden upon it will turn again Kingl. Very good but so will not a Sheep when it is led to the Slaughter I understand you But God be praised the Curst Cow has short Hornes You yet want a Parliament for your purpose and I hope long will The Militia is out of your reach and there are Guards enough and no more than enough about White-hall to hinder insolent Petitioners from affronting Majesty and crying your old stinking Fish No Bishop So that whatever your intentions may be I perswade my self you are too wary to betray your Good Cause by shewing both your Weakness and Wickedness at the same time Marp Well! for all this I hope the Lord will not forsake his People or suffer us to lose so many good men Kingl. It is strange this should be a loss when the outright loss of 10000 better men in a Battel to secure or obtain our Peace would not be thought a loss but an advantage to the Publick and hereby not only their Lives but many thousands may be saved hereafter for any thing we know Marp Sir You create fears to your self which we are far from the thoughts of Kingl. You do well to lull us asleep with singing Peace Peace Hush Lullaby Baby But if there be such fears of Mutinies now what may there be some years hence when you are grown so strong and numerous as by compulsion to endeavour to obtain those Demands which now you dare not petition for Marp We for Compulsion we are utterly against it and for Liberty of Conscience for all Men. Kingl. You tell us so now but what would you say if hereafter your Contagion should spread it self amongst those Persons who ought to be the defence of the Royal Person our Laws Property and Religion amongst those who may come to be Elected Members And here a great deal of Company coming in and the House beginning to fill they broke off their Discourse and presently after went both one way out of the Door though they seemed to be of far different Wayes in other things and so I lost the diversion of their further converse but not the remembrance of what then passed or at least the principal part and substance of it Clandite jam rivos pueri CHAP. XVIII The Heads of Separation brought to tryal by the Scripture proved to be false Prophets by their Fruits by the Description of them by the Time of their appearance the Signs given to know them by Wolves in Sheeps Clothing Their pretence to be the Ministers of Righteousness The way they would evade these Signs their Plea of not guilty because not guilty of all manifested to be vain and such as if admitted will clear all even Mahomet from the guilt of being false Prophet THAT these Heads of Faction may see that I for my own particular Part have a mind to be serious with them and that I am in sober earnest and so far past the Lusoria arma that I will close in with them and come ad Triarios and to satisfie all those whose strength of Prejudice or Interest does not render them utterly incapable of Satisfaction I do cite them before their own Judges the Scriptures let us therefore fore impartially examine the Character and then in God's Name Detur dignissimo let it be awarded to those who deserve it most THAT there shall arise false Apostles false Prophets and false Teachers in the Church of God we can make no doubt having so much and so plain Scripture for it so many Caveats given us against them S. Mat. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets saith our great Lord and Saviour which come to you in Sheeps Clothing but inwardly they are ravening Wolves Take heed that no man deceive you for many shall come in my Name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many S. Mat. 24.4 5. S. Mark 13.5 22 23. False Prophets and false Christs shall arise ands shew Signs and Wonders to seduce if it were possible the very Elect but take ye heed behold I have foretold you all things For I know saith S. Paul that after my departing shall grievous Wolves enter in amongst you Acts 20.29 30. Also of your own selves shall Men arise speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them Therefore watch And S. Peter is in the same mind But there were false Prophets amongst the People 2. S. Pet. 2.1 2. even as there shall be false Teachers amongst you who primly shall bring in or as the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies shall insinuate by the By Damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them Denying or scarcely owning that he is the Propitiation for the Sins of all the World And many shall follow their pernicious ways 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their wayes which come from Apollyon and are destructive to themselves to the Peace Unity and Safety of the Church and State by reason of whom the Way of Truth shall be evil spoken of the Ancient Catholick or Universal Doctrine and Practice of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be blasphemed or accounted Blasphemy NOW as it is most certain that there shall be such Men so it is no less certain that it shall be a very great Difficulty to discover and know them FOR first they shall come in the Name of Christ pretend a Commission from Christ and as confidently call themselves the Servants and Ministers of Christ and of the Gospel as they that really are so IN the second place they shall be able to draw Disciples after them and not a few but they shall deceive many Nay so far able as if it were possible to deceive the very Elect. And to effect this it is absolutely necessary that to deceive the Sheep they should come in Sheeps Clothing look most innocently and appear most harmless good and profitable Nay further they must have the appearance and resemblance of the Ministers of Righteousness And this St. Paul tells us is no difficult thing for such saith he are false Apostles deceitful Workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers also be transformed as the Ministers of Righteousness IN the last place they shall arise from among our selves and their design shall be to draw Disciples after them THAT we may not be mistaken we must therefore make a Discovery of them by those Ways Marks Signs and Directions which Christ and his Apostles have in the Scripture given us to distinguish them and know them by And therefore for the fulfilling of any prediction we must first enquire for the time of its Appearance and that is all along said to be in the last times or Days Now the Spirit speaketh expresly 1. Tim. 4.1
Backbitings Whisperings Slanders condemning censuring all who are not of their Way to be Reprobates as these Separatists Vncharitableness and Atheism hereby extreamly propagated they separate the dearest Friends and by creeping into Houses and beguiling silly Women divide those whom God hath joined together they are curious and busie-bodies in espying out the faults of all others which they publish to make themselves appear the Elect and all others Reprobates All this is done to fit them to act upon the publick Theater of the World which they practice in private Villages or where ever they dwell CHAP. XI Of the wicked Design they have by the strength of this Doctrine to overthrow the present Church and its Government which by their pretending to be the Elect who worship God in Spirit and Truth they endeavour to make Vnlawful and Antichristian This Doctrine contrary to Gods Promise to be with his Church to the end of the World and derogatory to his Honour Of the false aspersions they secretly cast upon the Church and the Publick Service of God Of the Inconveniences of arguing with them and the Advantages they make thereof their Impudence in boasting Themselves and Arguments invincible Of their Dislike of Places of Publick Worship Of the treatment they met with in the time of their Power The House of Prayer made a Den of Thieves Of their inveterate Hatred against Bishops and the Liturgie Of the dangerous Tenent they maintain That all People Princes and Magistrates are bound to pull down Antichrist which with them is Episcopacy and that if Princes will not the People may if they can get Power into their hands which makes them continually grasp at Dominion CHAP. XII Of the desperate Influences this Doctrine has upon the State and Civil Government This Amazon Fury bred in Rebellion and ever since nurst up with Blood proved from our own and all Europe's sad Experience This Doctrine inclines men to Aristocracy or the Government of a Commonwealth Of the little kindness they have for Monarchy Salus Populi suprema Lex their Fundamental Principle of Government abused to perswade men that the Peoples Election and Approbation are necessary Titles to a Crown That a King is Major singulis minor universis and may be deposed and punished by the People Proved from their Practice The great Encouragement it gives to Rebellion The same Doctrine of Fatality taught by Mahomet to inspire the Turks with courage against the Christians CHAP. XIII Of their Doctrine of the Necessity of Separation from the Wicked which they teach in private and by their Example in publick The Vses they make of it to know their Strength and Numbers which they always boast of if possible to bring Authority to comply with their Desires Hereby they ingross a trade amongst themselves Of their undermining Authority by making it Contemptible by their daily affronting it Of the Vnlawfulness of Separation from the Example of our Saviour and from Scripture Separation by S. Jude made a Mark of Reprobation Jeroboam's Policy the end of their Separation CHAP. XIV Of their Exaltation of Preaching and the Reason why they do so Of the great Veneration People have for the Pulpit The Advantages they make of it to gain the love of the People for being so painful Labourers dispersing their Doctrines and procuring Benevolences Hereby they bring the Prayers of the Church to be nauseous accustom People to Variety and Novelty and have opportunities of displaying their Gifts and Abilities as well as in Extempore Prayer The abuses they put upon the Church that it is against Preaching A Vindication of the Church from this Aspersion Of the Primitive and Modern Preaching It is against preaching themselves and their own Interest and wicked Designs that the Church declares it self CHAP. XV. A short View of some other of their Doctrines Of their Judaizing the Lords Day Of their censuring all their Ancestors and even their own Children to Damnation Their subtilty in deriding all these Accusations and disowning the Actions of the late Rebels when yet they tread in the very same steps That they have the same designs manifested from their great industry in all New Elections of Members of this present Parliament to get Voices for such as will be favourable to their Interest A probable conjecture that they have had a principal hand in the late unhappy differences between the two Houses and of the great desire they have of a New Parliament and their Hopes when that shall happen CHAP. XVI Of the Artifices which these men use to render all Applications ineffectual by their tiring out the Inferiour Magistracy with their obstinacy The Advantages they make of the suspension of Laws to fortifie their followers and perswading them it is a particular effect of the care which God takes of them and the Cause That place in the Acts of Gamaliel's counsel If this work be of God it will stand by which they frighten some and endeavour to discourage all people from medling with them considered and proved to be the word of Gamaliel a Doctor of the Law but not the word of God because not universally true CHAP. XVII A more particular Survey of their Policy in rendring all Expedients useless which have been applied to reclaim them from that place in Ezra 7.26 Of Capital Punishments Of Imprisonment how they make it of advantage to them to confirm their Cause and Followers and to bring a general odium upon the Laws and Government their Evasions to escape Forfeitures Of their Complaints of the Injustice and Oppression of the Penal Laws Of Banishment A Coffee-house Dialogue about it betwixt Mr. Kinglove of and a Grandchild of Martin Marprelate CHAP. XVIII The Heads of Separation brought to Trial by the Scripture proved to be false Prophets by their fruits by the description of them by the time of their appearance the signs given to know them by Wolves in Sheeps clothing Their pretence to be the Ministers of Righteousness the way they would evade these Signs Their Plea of Not guilty because not guilty of all manifested to be vain and such as if admitted will clear all even Mahomet from the guilt of being a false Prophet CHAP. XIX A further pursuance of the Discovery and that these men are false Prophets from the Description of St. Peter and St. Paul St. Peter's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and St. Judes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 considered as particularly designed to shew their infectious contagious Doctrines Of their despising Dominions querulous unsatisfied and complaining humour A short Vindication of the Church from their malicious Aspersion of being guilty of Idolatry CHAP. XX. THE CONCLVSION THE COVNTERMINE Or a short but true DISCOVERY c. CHAP. I. The Reasons and Occasion of the following Discourse The imminent danger of the Church and State by reason of the restless Endeavours industrious Malice and secret Contrivances of dissenting Separatists THERE never was any Age in which the Holy Church of God was more
Warranty of Truth and no further to the best of my knowledg Neither will I be tedious but dispatch what I have to say in as few words as is possible and as near as I can I will calculate it for the Meridian of all Capacities so as neither to endanger the weakest Brains nor if possible to displease the strongest And herein I shall act like a Physician of which Profession or an Apothecary they may guess me if they please and since the Dose I am preparing is like to be very strong I will give it in the lesser quantity I know it will work briskly and be apt movere Bilem make some persons vomit abundance of Choler and it may be that which is blackest upon their Stomachs in others it will strongly stir the Splene not so much to Laughter as Revenge If it does but in any measure contribute to the purging out that Epidemick Scurvy in the Body Politick which betrays it self by those dangerous symptomes of foul Mouths stinking Breaths and the loosness of the Tongue more than the Teeth in many persons I shall be abundantly satisfied And if I may but see any good Effects I am so little sollicitous for any private or particular advantage more than my share in the Publick Good that I care not whether the Cause be ever known THERE is no Science so true as the Mathematicks one of its infallible Demonstrations is Maximum posse moveri a minimo and upon that Basis I will lay the foundation of my hopes and how contemptible soever the first Mover may appear I will not despair but that this little Wheel may give a Motion to those which are far greater and more powerful A single hair if rightly applied may set that Engine at work which will want nothing besides Archimedes his convenient place to fix it upon to remove the Terrestrial Globe from off its Centre CHAP. II. Of the Policy of the Enemies of the Church and State to amuse us with the old Stratagem of Fears and Jealousies of the danger of Popery Hereby they ingratiate themselves with the Common People The improbability that the Romish Perswasion and Government should ever be established again in these Nations if it has of late increased amongst us we are obliged for it to Dissenters who have made those breaches by which those Enemies enter By these Fears and Jealousies which they sow in the minds of the People they endeavour to make them hate the present Government and Governours both in Church and State perswading them they are Popishly inclined and Antichristian and thus secretly undermine the foundation of Monarchy and Episcopacy IT is no uncommon Stratagem in War to make false Assaults against a besieged Place thereby to call away the perplexed Defendants from that place where the Storm is intended in good earnest It were well if this were not our case and truly the present face and posture of our Affairs does not look much unlike it for though there seems to be the greatest distance betwixt Rome and Geneva yet herein they both agree that they are our common Enemies and whilst the bolder Roman openly threatens us with an Assault the crafty Presbyterian with his Confederate Separatists are busie at the Mine and I believe it is not my single Opinion That more places otherways impregnable have submitted to the Will of the Conquerour by that Artifice than by the open fury of the Cannon And so dangerous is the practice of that invention in a Politick sense that how contemptible soever an Enemy may appear if in that Design they make an undiscovered progress there will never want some desperate Faux's to spring their Mines which if they succeed will blow up all from the very Foundations and bury the best built Government in the World in its own Ashes and Ruines I have read of a City whose Walls were overthrown without any other Enemies or Engines than the undermining Moles Whether true or fabulous it matters not sure I am if it be meerly a Fable the Moral may not be unuseful to us and though the Comparison may be odious yet it is but too agreeable to a sort of men whose restless and mischievous Tempers and Opinions hurry them blindly on to the accomplishment of their ill Designs by secret and underhand Practices so long as they are out of hopes to effect them by open Force and Violence BUT they must know they are not so secret or secure as they imagine and there are a great many amongst themselves who contribute not a little to our assistance in Countermining of them And if I might advise them they should not only be extreamly cautelous how they intrust one another with the GRAND DESIGN and SECRET but even how they trust themselves for Treachery and Baseness are so natural to them that they cannot forbear betraying themselves and let them Swear or Forswear Protest and Verily as often as they please yet at one time or another their speeches will discover them to be Galileans and I fear just such as he was before he obeyed the summons of the Cock to go out and weep bitterly S. Peter Mat. 26.75 which they have likewise need to do ONE of the greatest Arts by which they secure themselves whilst they amuse us is to perswade the world of a strange growth and encrease of Popery amongst us and that they are the only persons who stand in the Breach and by their Long Prayers by their sound and Evangelical Doctrine give a check to that threatning Deluge and Inundation This does extremely ingratiate them with the Common People to whom the Name of Popery is far more terrible than that of Mahumetanism and to make these Fears and Jealousies appear something more probable and not only conjectural they do not scruple the lowdest Calumnies and plainly enough to intimate that all things are in the greatest forwardness to entertain this dreadful Revolution All the eminent Prelates and Doctors of the Church being as they affirm favourably inclined to that Faith and some of them already suspected to be secretly of that Perswasion All our Prayers Ceremonies Altars Bowings Vestments and the other Decencies of Religious Worship are already Popish and Antichristian and hereby they do not only establish these Fears and Jealousies Hinc spargere voces In vulgum ambiguas quaerere conscius arma the Prologues to greater Mischiefs but render all the Publick Service of God suspected if not odious amongst the Populace AND I doubt not but if a late Act of Parliament against Treasonable Language and some little Love they have for their Lives and Estates did not repress their Insolence they would fix their Calumnies and Slanders upon the Persons of the highest Character in the Nation And it is neither Duty nor Allegiance nor Modesty but fear and self-love which does prohibit them from proceeding so high NOW to my apprehension there is nothing does more plainly manifest the Vanity of these Fears and
been abused when little nourishment was to be drawn from them that was not mixt with Blood or however with some of that Physick which the Mountebanks of the Age gave them to recover that Health which they had first taken from them and it is well enough known that the Vertue of the Medicine will pass through the Mother to the Child This Physick was their Pan-pharmacon called the Solemn League and Covenant Which was afterwards corrected with a Pill called the Engagement to be true to the Government without a King or House of Peers and the Dregs or these poysonous and ill-prepared Medicines stick as close to these men as their very Natures so that without the danger of being thought a Conjurer it is easie to guess what they are and what they would be at I 'le lay my life on 't they love the Covenant and the dear Good old Cause a great deal better than a Prince or a Prelate without which they have sworn to live and whose utter Extirpation with * The Ceremony of their taking the Covenant by which it appears they are not against all Ceremonies hands lift up to Heaven they have so solemnly sworn and vowed and their Consciences are so infinitely tender that they would not break their Oaths to gain the whole World no more than Herod would do his though never so impious and unlawful And yet these very Men some them both Clergie and Laicks made no difficulty in taking those detestable Oaths to cancel all their former Oaths of Allegiance Supremacy and Canonical Obedience which they had so often as they made their Superiors believe ex animo taken and sworn THEIR Brethren of the Armies Education are indeed their sworn Brethren Simeon and Levi it may be not altogether so well verst in Practical but Knockers in Polemical Divinity they can pray two hours upon the Drum's head make as loud a noise as that when 't is highest brac't and it may be are as empty too These men can fire a Pistol in the Face of a Prince can exercise a Troop both in Martial Discipline and Rebellion These are spiritual Draggoons and can serve either as Horse or Foot These were such who for their Eminent Gifts and Services were divers of them possessed of the fair Demesnes of the Orthodox Clergie and at his Majesties late happy Restauration were forced to quit both their Military Dioceses and good Livings and no wonder then if some of them out of necessity and for a Lively-hood others out of Revenge do now persecute those Persons and that Way with their utmost Hatred against which they once fought or at least incouraged others to fight so heartily and successfully And these are their Antesignani of the first Rate or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sons of Thunder AND lest this precious Generation of men should perish for they are not Immortal the breeding of the Universities being corrupted with Surplices and Subscriptions some persons are so indiscreet as to commit a Son or Nephew to their Tuition or they pick up some hopeful young man as they call him whom they educate in their Doctrines and Discipline and thus take care that the succession may be secured and propagated AFTER these come the Laicks Illiterate or Ignorant Heads such as are meerly Mechanicks Of these some are such as were in actual Armes against their late lawful Soveraign and having run away from the more painful and honest Trades in which their Parents or Masters gave them Education in the Rebel Armie learnt the better Trades of War and Saintship which at that time were inseparably linkt together Others of them are such whose courage it may be was not so great as to endure the sight of a naked Sword the clashing of Armour the noise of the Cannon or the other Terrors of Warr but having the gainful Employs of Sequestrators Decimators or Country Committee-men or some dependance on them staid zealously at home to pray for those who were couragiously fighting the Lords Battels against the Mighty abroad and by their Rapine and Oppression making long Prayers and devouring those Widdows Houses whom their Companions murdering Swords had made such in the first place to make Provision for themselves and in the next for their Confederates who were to bear the Heat and Burthen of the Day These Fellows were great frequenters of Sermons those things then call'd Exercises which indeed were very violent and made such as used them sweat whilst they set their Lungs to sale from the Pulpit to encourage Sedition and justifie Rebellion To these Meetings if they could write and read to make their Zeal the more observable they never went without the necessary Utensils of Pen Ink and a large Pocket writing-Book which was then the high Mode of the Religious and Godly With such scraps of holy Non-sense as they there pickt up they charitably feasted the Neighbourhood and after many vain Repetitions of such fragments of their Collections to their own Families and whoever else would come to hear them perswaded of their strange Gifts and Abilities and encouraged by the frequent flatteries and admiration of others whose judgment was of the same Standard with their own they came at last to set up for themselves and in a little time to despise their Masters NOW and then you should have a Cobler venture beyond his Last a Chandler finding out new Lights a Grocer retailing Religion a Black-Smith with a hot spark of Zeal in his throat hammering out Hobnails and Heresie or a pragmatical Apothecary prating according to the Proverb This Crew of Shop-Divines animated by the prevailing licentiousness of the Times their Ignorance and Impudence with the help of some seditious Books and an English Bible which for want of understanding the Original they wrest as all unlearned and unstable men do the Scriptures to their own sensne fansie and damnation launch forth boldly into the depths of Divinity to become Fishers for Men and Money and with as much confidence as if they had the same Commission from our great Lord and Master Luk. 5.6 Act. 2.41 which his Disciples had to take the miraculous draught of Fishes or of Men. NOR were the Advantages and Returns which they made in this Spiritual Traffick so mean or inconsiderable but that still they did encourage new Adventurers in the Trade and also paid the first bold Undertakers sufficiently for their pains Such a man was then accounted a Confiding Man that is he was fit for the use of the State in the necessary and pious Employments of Rapine Sacriledg and premeditated Murder and hereby which one would think very strange they got the Reputation of sober and conscientious men just and honest in their Dealings which was no small step to many Customers and by light Gains and quick Returns to make a heavy Purse for themselves though I doubt not but they made many heavy Hearts and light Purses for other men viz. the truly Loyal Subjects who
answers the scrupulous and conscientious Servant there is to be a Godly Meeting at such a place and I must go to hear such a Precious Man who teaches the most feeling soul-saving heart-breaking sin-destroying Truths But besides I know not whether the Horse be worth so much or whether he is sound Wind and Limb and I am afraid lest I should cheat or over-reach my Neighbour and indeed I dare not do it for I would not wrong my Conscience to gain the whole world and lose my own precious Soul So that as far as I see if what he calls his Conscience does but suggest it the Man will be the Master And this Liberty of Conscience is a most excellent thing to cancel all such Contracts as Indentures and if it were but as generally received and put in practice as it is preacht in London the Chamberlain of the City would be eased of a great trouble and Conscience would make more Free-men in an Hour than he can do in seven Years It were endlese to recount all the Instances of this Nature which might be brought to shew the unreasonableness ridiculousness and dangerous folly of maintaining this Doctrine AS for that subtle piece of Non-sense of satisfying that Duty which they owe to Authority by Suffering which they call Passive Obedience I think it is out of countenance already or if it be not I think it may very well blush when they rank themselves amongst Thieves Murderers the damned in Hell and the Devils themselves all which are passively obedient to the Laws of God and Men that is they suffer the just Punishments of their Disobedience to both THIS may appear a large Digression and not much to the purpose of the Intention of these Papers But I thought I could not do these men justice if after the Character of their Persons I did not endeavour to take away from them this Feather with which they play so frequently and tickle both their own Mouths and the Ears of others CHAP. V. Of the several Arts they use to gain Love Credit Esteem and Veneration Of their pretences to Exemplary Piety in their Actions Words Looks Gestures Habits Of the way of their maintenance by Free-will Offerings the Advantages they have thereby over the Clergie of the Church it eases them of a great trouble and preserves the love of their Auditors who liket his Gospel-way where they may at their pleasure withdraw their Bounty it secures them from the Penal Laws Of the Advantage they make of Punishment by calling it Persecution of their seeming Constancy in suffering for what they call Conscience hereby they gain love pity and money They make this Persecution an infallible Mark of the trite Church the use they make of it to render the Government odious to the People and to dispose them by degrees to endeavour the alteration of the present which they call Reformation The same Arts made use of to promote the late Rebellion LET us now examine by what Arts and Arguments they proceed with so much success in the Returns they make of their Traffick for Reputation Money and Disciples and to pass for such precious godly men and the only Soul-savers both in their Opinion and the Thoughts of others who follow them in Multitudes WE must therefore understand that what by the In-comes of the late Times when the Spoils of the Wicked and the Riches of the Nation ran through their Chanels and what by the present liberal Contributions of the Brotherhood they have as little Necessity as Opportunity to enrich themselves by impoverishing others What they did before is both by Time and the surpassing Generasity of their most gracious Prince buried in Oblivion So that now they have nothing to do but to promote the Good Cause and God's Glory for I dare engage that Restitution of any thing formerly obtained by unlawful Means is no part of their Religion nor ever raised the least scruple in the tenderest of their Consciences THEY know well enough that Example is more prevalent and convincing than all the Precepts and Arguments in the world and that he that would draw another to be of his Perswasion must first perswade him to believe that he is good and has a great love and tenderness for his concerns and eternal Welfare And herein lies their Excellency It is their greatest care and constant endeavour to manage their Lives and Actions with so much cunning and artifice that Detraction and Envy shall have much to do with all their curiosity to find out any thing in the outside and visible part of their Lives whereof to accuse them excepting for their disobedience to Government which though it be unfledg'd Rebellion in the shell yet they are so far from esteeming it criminal or sinful that therein consists the only differencing part of their Religion from other Men. And for my part I will in displaying this their Master-piece and what-ever else concerns them do them all the justice and reason they can deserve THAT they may therefore appear to be the most upright Men in their generation they are not only violent in decrying Sin in others especially great and scandalous common and customary sins Intemperance and that Debauchery under which the Nation groans but they are all extreamly vigilant over themselves most prudent and dexterous not only in avoiding the sins but even the occasions which may lead them into any disorders And therefore though they appear wonderful courteous and full of obliging smiles yet they will rarely converse much or long with any Company and always chuse to leave behind them the great desire of their further conversation rather than to importune and nauseate with a tedious visit coming to see you as a Physician for your Soul and staying as if they had more Patients in their Round and it may be only for the Fee Nor will they so much as come in any place where there may be occasion or suspicion of Scandal or expence unless in case of necessity or in their travels upon the road they are as scrupulous of a Tavern or publick House as a Mahometan who by his great Prophet is forbidden the use of Wine If at any time they fall in accidentally with idle or extravagant Persons they will either by their silence or morose severity escape their persecutions and by a discreet Incomplaisance avoid those dangers and inconveniences which hot Discourses and hard Drinking precipitate so many Men into I do not charge them with these things as matters of guilt and if these were their only crimes they were the most excellent Persons of the World And possibly the want of this necessary Circumspection and cautelous Prudence in some of those who call themselves Sons of the Church have done her the greatest unkindnesses and have given such advantages to her enemies as they could not have hoped for from all their own industrious malice and subtilest contrivance I wish they would seriously consider of it and in time reform
evident I desire all such whose Age will give them leave to call to mind whether they have never seen or heard that Salus Populi est suprema Lex publiquely asserted in Print and abused to countenance the most Villanous Actions that the welfare of the People of which these Men are the only competent Judges is above all Laws Persons and Considerations whatsoever and that Kings whose only true Title to their Crown Contrary to Scripture By me Kings Reign Proverb The Powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13. is the Peoples Election and Approbation and neither Succession nor ordination and appointment from God and Kingly Government if prejudicial to that Fundamental Law may by the People be abolished deposed nay and punished for such Delinquencies even to the loss of Crown and Life Have we not seen all this done as well as said Have you never heard that a King is Major Singulis but Minor Vniversis a little better man than Dick or Tom or Will if you take them barely by themselves in a Frock with a Cart-whip but by your Majesties leave good Sir King you are not so good a man as Mr. Multitude Have you never known the Time when the Commons of England were white Boyes and stroak'd over the Heads with the tickling Imagination That all the good People of the Nation were a free born People and I know not how many good morrows with which they were wont in those Dayes to cologue the World with a Bait of a pretended Liberty into the Trap of a real Slavery What they then thought they boldly writ and spoke and what they dare not now Speak yet they dare as boldly think that being a freedom which they cannot be deprived of and undoubtedly they do so and it is still their Judgment their Actions speak it most distinctly and plain It is not this or that King but Monarchy in general that they are against as not being a Government for their Turn nor any kind of Government by a Single Person and I am confident they did as much hate Oliver after he took upon him to be a Single Protector as before they lov'd him whilst he was only his Excellency and their Renowned and Victorious General It is a Common-wealth that is their Darling where every one is not without hopes of his being uppermost and that it may come to his Turn to have a Share in the Government And where amongst so many Elective Heads they are sure to make a Party and it shall go hard if not the Major whereas one single Person can be but of one Perswasion at one Time and it is a thousand to one never of theirs if he consults his own Security Settlement Safety Interest or Glory which because it is Natural for all men to do they cannot believe but he will And this is the reason of their Hatred of Monarchy because they fear it and knowing how inconsistent their Principles are one with another and that they cannot both have the Government they are afraid lest Soveraign Princes awakened by their Danger should by the most Rigorous Methods ease themselves of the Jealousie they justly entertain of such desperate Rivals and Competitors and this makes them likewise so industrious and restless in their Endeavours by making a Party to overbalance the power of the Prince and if possible by force to wrest his from him by which means they think it is only possible to secure themselves from Ruine Nor will they ever quit these Persuasions so long as they hold to their Principles which for ought I see is like to be as long as they live For if they be the Elect People of God and in the Right Way of true Worship and Religion they are bound in Conscience to promote and propagate it with or without the consent of their King 't is all one As we daily see they do by all their Actions and Indeavours And they who in his Royal City and before his face are not affraid to Violate his Laws and Proclamations will never fear the sword of Justice if once they are assured that their own is longer And though the Apostles teach no such Doctrine nor the Holy Martyrs ever propagated the Christian Faith or Church-Government with any other Blood but their own or with any other Weapons but Prayers and Tears these men are of another Opinion and can fight the Lords Battels and Curse Meroz as bitterly as the Angel did if they come not to help the Lord against the Mighty And for encouragement to fight I know no Doctrine like this and that of Mahomet which whatever they may do in others agree in this point that the Terminus vitae est immobilis Every mans Fate is in unalterable Characters written in his forehead Those feeble and effeminate Asiaticks had never carried their conquering Armes so far amongst the Hardy Europeans if they had not been inspired with this Doctrine of Fatality and that if it be decree'd that they must Dye in this Battel or in that Assault it is impossible for them to prevent it and if they must escape and overlive it they shall though they run upon the Mouth of the Roaring Cannon And in which likewise they agree and have a further Harmony if they fall by the Fatal Steel or undistinguishing Bullet they do not only die in the Bed of Honour but step immediately into Paradise which is but the just Recompence of those who sacrifice their Lives to propagate the Alchoran or the Good Old Cause I do not now wonder to have heard those of the Royal Party say so often that the Rebels fought like Turks since in this Opinion they were such Besides being the Elect and fighting Gods Cause they acquire a new Courage from the hopes they entertain that he is obliged to protect them and to fight from them that the Stars in their Courses shall fight against Sisera And how far such thoughts did Encourage our English Rebels a people naturally bold enough to attempt the most hazardous Enterprises Let those Loyal Gentlemen testifie who yet wear the Honourable Scars which they purchas'd in the defence of their King Country Laws Liberties and Religion against those desperate Villains Let the many Cruel Battels and desperate storms hard marches and hot Engagements they underwent let these be Witnesses it was not all for Pay and Plunder though these were good Encouragements But the Main of the Quarrel was pro Aris in their English against Altars for Religion and Reformation the Liberty of the Subject which if any thing can will inspire a Coward with Courage and make him Valiant And that the Cause was Gods they never then made any doubt nor yet make any more scruple of it than they do of their Election And what kind thoughts they have of the present Magistracy you shall ghess if you have any skill Ex pede Herculem to take the proportion of Hercules by the print of his foot One of these and a Teacher
which by experience are found so dangerous to the Souls Bodies and Estates of Men both in their Private and Publique Capacities It is their idolizing of Preaching making it the Golden Calf of Beth-el the House of God and exalting it above all other means of Grace It is their justling with it for precedency and not that only but the All of Godliness or at least the sine qua non without which according to their Measure and Manner there can be no true Religion which the Church condemns in them and with very good Cause for it is a most manifest falshood and the Bishops are so far from being against Preaching that many of them are very eminent and constant Preachers themselves to the Confusion of this notorious Slander notwithstanding that which as Saint Paul sayes of himself comes upon them dayly the Care of all the Churches in the heavy as well as honourable Charge of Government But the plain truth is This is so necessary a Tool that if it be taken away they cannot go forward with their Babel without this they could not be able to Caress the People or conveniently to disperse their Opinions nor indeed make any tolerable advance in their Grand Design and therefore Silencing Godly Ministers of which Number they only account themselves is one of the most horrid Cruelties that Perfection can invent though unless their Tongues were out it is as easie to Silence a Thunder-clap and they are all like the Aspen-leaves of which the Story sayes a Wicked Womans Tongue was made the more the wind of Persecution blows upon them the faster do they wagg To conclude it is not for their preaching of Christ or the Gossel but for their prating with such malicious Words against Kings Prelates Magistrates Prayers and all Government Ecclesiastical and Civil for which the Laws as well as out Church condemns them and is against their Preaching CHAP. XV. A short View of some other of their Doctrines Of their Judaizing the Lords Day Of their censuring all their Ancestors and even their own Children to Damnation Their subtilty in denying all these Accusations and disowning the Actions of the late Rebels when yet they tread in the very same steps That they have the same Design manifested from their great Industry in all late New Elections of Members of the present Parliament to get Voices for such as will be favourable to their interest A probable Conjecture that they have had a principal hand in the late unhappy Differences betwixt the Two Houses and of the great Desire they have of a New Parliament and their hopes when that shall happen THere are several other Doctrines of theirs which I shall only briefly touch upon in order to a Discovery of what is their Design in maintaining them though they may deserve a just reprehension from some other Pen. One of them is their teaching the People to Judaize by making a Sabbath of the Lords Day not that I believe with all their turning over they can find any thing in the New Testament for countenancing their New Opinion or for the Institution of it And though possibly the Disciples might have some intimation from our Lord about it Yet having not left any thing upon Holy Record that they had the more probable Opinion is that in Commemoration of the Glorious Resurrection they keep it as a Festival and that it is to the Ancient Vsage and Command of the Church that it ows its Institution and that they never intended it for the Sabbath in a strict and Jewish sense we have the same Ancient Vsage to testifie and it was and still is the Ancient and present Quarrel of the Jews against the Christians that they break the Sabbath not only as to the Day but as to the strict Observation of it even on the Lords Day which they take for the Christian Sabbath And methinks that is strange that these men should cry out so against us for observing Dayes and but using the name of ALTAR Heb. 13.10 We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the Tabernacle for both which we have Scripture and Authority to justifie us should yet think it is no Crime in them to seek for a refuge for their Error by being obliged to the Sanction of the Law for a Sabbath And how they will make one part of the Commandment mutable by changing the Day from Saturday to Sunday and the other part eternal and unalterable without an express Warrant from him who is Lord of the Sabbath I confess it poses my Vnderstanding for as I take it they can shew no Deputation to be his Vice-Gerents But if there were nothing worse though I think this an Error I should not deny them my Vote to be Jewes and enjoy their Sabbath and think it as great a Sin to dress a good Dinner on that Day as to commit Murder or Adultery Provided they would keep it a Day of Rest from those ill Employments they have so often and still do abuse it to as well as their Fasts which were always observed to be the Prologues to Mischief or raising of Money They who are for Liberty let them not condemn the Lawful Liberty of others nor impose what they have neither Warrant nor Command for upon mens Consciences as absolutely necessary to Salvation But the truth of the Business is as they have no Doctrine without an Vse so they have severall very ill ones for this for besides that it adds not a little to that opinion of Sanctimony which is so necessary for them to cover their Black Designs by the rigid Austerity they this Day impose upon themselves and others The great Vse they make of it is to lessen the Esteeem of the Holy Fasts and Festivals of the Church which they say are mere Superstitious inventions of Men forbidden by Saint Paul where he tells the Galathians he had bestowed upon them Labour in vain if they observed days and years but the Sabbath is of Gods own appointment and to be Sanctified according to their Doctrine So long therefore as they put it to these Employments as they do in their frequent Preaching upon it to make a Distinction of a PARTY and to bring not onely our Christian but Politique Liberty into Bondage I think it is not without Danger as well though not so much as the rest As for that strange Doctrine which I have heard several of them maintain That all their Ancestors and even their own Children who dye in their Infancy are damned because they have not actual Faith or had not the true Faith as they have it is a great Uncharitableness but no injury to the Dead who are never the further off from Heaven for their saying so But this is a necessary Corollary to their former Doctrine or Predestination and of their being the only Elect for not only all Heathens but all others who are not of their Faith and Perswasion are damned and that till
within this hundred Years none could be or otherwise their Doctrine is false and Salvation may be had without it and in the Communion of another Church which if they confess all goes to Ruine and the Opus multorum annorum will be broken in pieces and would not that be a great Pity that so curious a Frame should be ruin'd in a Moment as for their own Children if they will damn them who can help it it is a sign they are a kind good natur'd charitable Generation of Men. But if the poor Infants must suffer for it and go to Hell I am sure they may thank their Parents whose want of Faith or not procuring their Baptism must if any thing be the occasion of it or else Saint Paul is much mistaken when he tells us that the Faith of one of the Parents shall over ballance the Infidelity of the other in favour of the Child for the unbelieving Wife is sanctified by the believing Husband 1 Cor. 7.14 and the unbelieving Husband by the believing Wife else were your Children unclean but now they are holy And if so and they die so I dare say they shall be happy and whosoever dare say the contrary my Charity would oblige me not to believe him and I am sure my Religion obliges me to believe him who best knows and who bought and paid for them the price of his own dear Blood and he tells me S. Mat. 10.14 that of such consisteth the Kingdom of God But which is at the bottom of all hereby they still more and more ingratiate themselves with the People whom it is absolutely necessary to please and without a strong interest in whose love and esteem they cannot hope to make a Party strong enough to carry on the rest of their Designs and how is it possible but that the very feet of these Messengers of glad Tidings must be beautiful their News and Person in the highest esteem How is it possible enough to admire and love these Men who discover unto them this distinguishing Grace of God so particularly by their preaching manifested to their Souls above all the rest of Man-kind undoubtedly if they will not go so far as Saint Paul witnesses of some of his Converts as to be willing to pluck out their Eyes for his sake yet they will be ready to pluck out their Purses for a present Maintenance and if occasion be both with those and some of them with their Persons assist the Cause the Good Cause of Reformation which is the thing they by this Doctrine would bring them to and assure themselves of As for their dislike of Christian Burial and several other things I have not much to say to them about it or can think they have any other Design than what they have in all the little occurrences of Life Words Looks Gestures to keep up a distinction c. make a Party and like the wicked King of Israel they will be buried with the burial of an Ass much good may it do them And thus having taken a Survey of these Dissenters their Original and Education their Positions and Doctrines which are so useful and necessary to them in order to the promoting the Main Design of Reformation by making ours the Kingdom of Antichrist that so they may have a colour and pretence to pull it down we should now come to a particular declaration of their Practices but having already upon the several Points of their Doctrine spoken fully of them I shall not use their Method and endeavour to swell these pages into a larger Book by vain Repetitions for I design the Publick and not the Stationers advantage and can assure them I am no Hackney Scribler and therefore for their Practice I refer the Reader backwards for about Fourty Years and shall only Recapitulate That all these great and fair pretences with which the Heads of Faction indear themselves to the People and the People to them all that Diligence they use both Night and Day for they are not without their to be suspected Night-Meetings of which the Politique Historian so well Remarques That they are Longè periculosiores because they seem to favour Deeds of Darkness I say all this industry is principally intended to alienate the Affections of the Subjects of these Nations from the present Government and Governours both Civil and Ecclesiastical and by creating Fears and Jealousies the old Engines of Sedition to unsettle the Minds of Men by pretending great abuses and unlawfulness in Persons and Things to bring the People first to a dislike of them and by degrees to wish an Alteration and in plain Terms to fit and dispose them by these secret and subtile Artifices which the unwary cannot and the Designing Party will not discover with the first Opportunity for downright Rebellion It is a matter of the greatest Wonder that there should be found any Men who pretend either to Honesty Prudence or Policy who should dislike a Government which for Excellency has not its equal in the whole World There is no Place or People under the Sun where the Laws do so exactly hold the Ballance betwixt the Prince and the People as in the Realm of England where every mans Right is to be bounded and Property secured that the poorest Cottager enjoys such Priviledges and Protection as the Gentry of other Nations would think themselves happy in and the better sort of People the Free-holders possess many such Liberties and Franchises as the Counts and Grandees amongst our Neighbours can hardly boast of and it is a great pity that those People who pretend to be weary under so mild and fresh a Constitution of Government have not seen or felt the hardship of the Lives of the Bores and Peasants on the other side of the Sea not only now when they are Slaves to all Parties in the present War but in the Times of the most profound Peace and flourishing Trade amongst them It has been esteemed a State Maxim by the wisest Heads Malum bene positum non est temere Removendum What must we then think of those Persons who are for Innovations in that Government which with the Wisdom Caution and Prudence of several Hundreds of Years has been established and by the constant succession of all that experience has been found so useful and advantageous to all the ends of Society Should a man go now about to perswade the Worthy Citizens of London to carry the ancient River of Thames out of its Channel over Black-Heath which would be difficult enough only because it did not please him or in hopes of finding Treasure at the Bottom of the Old River would they not provide a lodging think you for him in the most stately Louvre that ere was built for mad Inhabitants but if he should not only frame such a Project but secretly endeavour to perswade the Populace to compel the more Rich and Wealthy to undertake so unreasonable a Design and which must certainly mine
if they may but draw one out of the Head of the State at which they have such an aking Tooth in their own But it is to be hoped that these Designs of their Enemies will be an occasion of their closer Vnity and firmer Vnion no person breathing being willing to believe the Counsels of his avowed Enemies much less to take or follow them And whatever some men would perswade the World the Interest of the King is inseparable from that of the Country and vice versâ and it is the Kings Person and Presence that makes the Court and whoever owns himself against the Interest of the Court does at the same time abandon the Interest both of the Crown and Country CHAP. XVI Of the Artifices which these men use to render all applications ineffectual by their tiring out the Inferiour Magistracy with their Obstinacy The advantage they make of the suspension of Laws to fortifie their followers and perswading them it is a particular effect of the care which God takes of them and the Cause That place in the Acts of Gamaliel''s Counsel If this Work be of God it will stand by which they frighten some and endeavour to discourage all people from meddling with them considered and proved to be the Word of Gamaliel a Doctor of the Law but not the Word of God because not universally true HAving thus far traced them under ground and brought to light their most Secret Designs by shewing the ill and dangerous use they make of the Sword of the Spirit with which they pretend to be armed though in truth it is the Spirit of the Sword Let us now come to see what Defensive Armour furnishes their Panoply and Magazine and there likewise we shall find them most admirably stored and that they are as they think as invulnerable as the Poets feign the Son of Thetis and have not only Bombes and Fire-balls to annoy their Enemies the great Ordinance of Preaching to batter down the strongest Fortifications of Government but a Shield to keep off every blow from doing them harm There never was any Age that wanted mem of factious and turbulent Spirits or ambitious Heads but sure never any produced more or more dangerous than the Present such who will make no difficulty to sacrifice all the Publick Interest to their Private Satisfaction Opinions and Designs It has therefore been the cautelous Prudence of all Governments to keep a watchful eye and a strict rein upon all such disorderly Tempers and dangerous Persons But above all others as our late martyr'd Soveraign of most blessed memory from too dear Experience does observe the Devil of Rebellion who comes transformed in the shape of the Angel of Reformation is always most dangerous and where Piety and Conscience are drawn into the Conspiracy though they are but both personated yet there will never want an unwary Multitude to follow support encourage and assist such bewitching pretences How ineffectual all the endeavours have been which hitherto have been applied to such growing Distempers is but too apparent by the slender successes and slow advances they have made towards our pristine Health and perfect Recovery and that we are not yet out of a visible danger of relapsing into the same desperate Maladies which does not at all argue want of Skill in the State-Physicians but the incorrigible obstinacy and radicated Malignity of the Distemper which will not submit to common gentle and familiar Methods and though they may expect the more rugged and forceable Process for a Cure we will endeavour to shew how by their subtile Arts they render all Operations upon them ineffectual They make it their great business to discourage and tire out the Subordinate Magistrates in the Administration of Justice by rendring all their endeavours of this Nature vain fruitless and unsucceseful encouraging their Followers to hold out but a little longer and persist in their obstinacy and the Day will be their own and if as it may probably happen any one who formerly did use vigorously to prosecute them does but a little desist from his proceedings or abate of what they call his Heat presently they tell their People such a man is now convinced of his Error in persecuting the People of God and in Time so will all the rest and they will give them Scripture for it for they are rarely without a Scriptum est though by their abusing it as he did to our Saviour we may know of whom they learnt that Trade The Rod of the wicked they tell them shall not alwayes lye upon the Lot of the Righteous But if this were all they would many times prove themselves false Prophets and these their foolish Conjectures coming to the Ears of such worthy Gentlemen as are thereby abused prove an occasion to let them know their mistake But if any such Person whom they call a Persecutor for doing his Duty happen to die though in the common Method and by the unavoidable Laws of Mortality presently they undertake to be Interpretes fulminis and pronounce it a Judgemeat from God who layes such Persecutors in the Dust and they will not stick to threaten others with the fame Fate to frighten them into a compliance with or connivence at them and to manifest I do not abuse them in this or whatever I write concerning them this following Letter will make appear and give us a taste of their Temper and pretences of Innocence which have been mentioned It was sent to me by a Clergy-man who by the account he gave me with it did endeavour by all fair means and several remonstrating Letters and Discourses to perswade one of these Dissenters to quit his dangerous Wayes and Doctrines but finding those ineffectual he gave him to understand the danger into which he had run himself by administring the Sacrament contrary to the Act of Vniformity besides several other offences against many Statutes provided for suppressing and preventing Vnlawful Conventicles telling him that if he did not cease to make such Disturbances in his Parish since the such and gentle means would not he was resolved to effect it by the Power and Severity of the Laws to which his Answer was as followes SIR YOurs I received yesternight my Answer and Judgement is that a persecuting Spirit is very abominable and odious to God and all Good Men. I pity you for your Saul-like breathings notwithstanding when with you I challenged you by your self or any other justly to tax me with any wrong I have done you or any under you or with medling in the least with State or Ecclesiastical Affairs Oh Innocence You in Yours to me assert and vaunt that it is in your power to do that that tends to the mine of my Estate You know Sir whose language you imitate to whom our meek and Blessed Lord replied as in Joh. 19.11 I could instance in many late Persecutors whom God hath laid in the * * It being the Government which does prosecute them
the Elect and to the contemplation of those great and durable Riches and Treasures which they think are laid up for them in Heaven and these pleasant Phansies fill them with Joy and that Joy fills them with a contempt of earthly Things that Contempt brings them to some degrees of Contentment and now they know how to suffer the want and loss of all things and at the last they come to the real belief that they are what they think themselves most tryed and excellent Christians Though all this is but a meer Effect of Nature and which a Heathen might have had above the idle Dream of his Elizium and they are no more the fruits of Grace in the one than in the other and the foundation of their joy being laid upon a false bottom as before was manifested they have little Reason to rejoyce in these Sufferings which befall them as evil Doers as disobedient to Authority and busie-bodies in other mens Matters in medling with the Affaires of State endeavouring Alterations and Innovations But for certain the Politique Ring-Leaders of Faction know whoever loses by these Punishments they have gained their Design upon the People whom by these sufferings they assure to themselves and their Principles finding it verified which they have so often told them about suffering these afflictions and that God would recompence these their sufferings for Conscience sake with spiritual Joy and Comfort And not only so but they bring them to the bent of their Bow and easily induce them to hate all Government which does by violence deprive them of their Estates and especially the guilt of this Persecution is sure to be thrown upon the Ecclesiastical Government to render that as odious and Antichristian as they possibly can It is well that punishment is now a sign of Grace and the suffering the deserved Penalties of the Laws is come to be Persecution It is not yet Thirty Years since they or so many of them as are alive were then of another Judgement and made the most illegal and unjust sufferings of others a certain sign of Reprobation and being forsaken of God But these People have very ill Memories though it is the Opinion of some that in regard of one excellent Faculty they are Masters of they had need to have good ones However this gives us some encouragement to hope that before that time be run about again all People may be convinced that this which they call Persecution may be believed to be Just Punishment since the Scene of words may be so easily shifted in half an Age. And if once the Vizzard chance to fall off the Aethiopian come to be discovered and what now looks like a Lamb appears to be a Leopard when the World comes to understand them aright they will pass a true Judgement of them and their ruinous Principles and Practices and say Qui Color Albus erat nunc est contrarius albo And this is so far from impossible that it is not improbable and if no person will do it for them they will certainly do it for themselves Having shewn what great Artists they are in eluding all other Penalties we should now come to a Consideration of the last Particular which is Banishment but in regard that Method has never yet been tryed upon them nor so far as I know so much as been designed against them I can say little to it nor can I conjecture what Startagems or Policies they would find out to evade and avoid it But if I may be permitted the freedom Ita vertere seria I will shift the Scene with a pleasant Dialogue which it was once my Fortune to hear at a Coffee-house betwixt two Gentlemen Strangers to me as I was to them It was one Evening before the House was full of Smoak and Company though never empty of what was then the talk of the Town about the Test their Discourse was occasioned as I afterwards understood by reading the paper when they had left it by a small Letter to a Friend which lay before them upon the Table in which it was in short treated of the Means to bring in Dissenters to the Church and particularly it was addressed to this point of Banishment as a most impolitick and unpracticable way of Punishment The Gentlemens names I know not nor if I did would it be necessary to divulge them but one of them seemed to be the Grand-Child to Martin Mar-Prelate advanced by the gain of Godliness to Master for both his age and discourse were agreeable to the conjecture The other look't like one of the ancient Family of the Kingloves of and therefore for distinction so we will call them They had warm'd their mouths with Coffee and Discourse before I came in and what was the beginning of the Discourse I cannot tell but having seated my self in civility at a convenient distance call'd for a Dish of the Liquor of the House got the Gazette and Votes about me The first that I heard Mr. Kinglove say was Sir it is an Axiom both in Naturals and Politicks which will never fail while the World stands Sublatâ Causâ tollitur effectus do but take away these Causes of Dissention and Disturbance and the Effects and Dangers will certainly cease Marp Verily now I find that the Tender Mercies of the wicked are cruelty What would you have so many good People sent away only because their Conscience will not give them leave to bow to Baal O! Sir consider your own safety is bound up in the Bundle of theirs it is for the Elects sake that God spares the World it is for the five Righteous that the Lord does not destroy this Spiritual Sodom Take heed how you offend these little Ones Kingl. Pray Sir do not mistake me though you are all subject to wilful mistakes I am not for dis-peopling a Nation as the Gentleman in his Paper here tells you Ferdinand the Catholick and Philip Kings of Spain did in banishing 234000 Families of Jews and Moors nay more I must tell you I am of the Opinion that it is no Politique Consideration to permit whole Families to go into Voluntary Exile amongst our Neighbours and I have heard some people who have the reputatation of Prudence and Honesty attribute a great part of the sensible Decay of the Trade of the Nation to the want of such a Precaution for several of your discontented Mutinous Party have transported those Crafts and Mysteries which whilest they were such to our Neighbours brought no small advantage to the Nation whereas now by these Mens baseness Foraigners are become Masters of them and by reason of their Industry frugal way of Living and Trading they beat down our Markets and undersel us in our own Commodities Marpr O now I perceive your sad meaning you would have our Candlestick taken away our Teachers removed out of our sight Kingl. I. have nothing to do with your Candlestick but I would be glad to see the Fire-brand taken out of