Sufferings upon them As if indeed they had been what Mr. Dolben called them at the Sessions in Northampton The Vermin of the Nation which ought to be destroyed Yet our Preacher saith That (a) P. 26. 27. he had a Sweetness and Gentleness in his Nature that lean'd to Excess and that he he never did an ill Office or hard Thing to any Person whereas in his Thanksgiving Sermon at Whitehall for the Victory at Sea he represents his old suffering Brethren only as Pretenders to Conscience and in his sly way insinuates that the most likely and effectual way to reduce them was to load them yet with more Sufferings Saith he As bad an Argument as Success is of a good Cause I am sorry to say it but am afraid it is true it is like in the Conclusion to prove the best Argument of all others to convince those who have so long pretended Conscience against submission to the present Government One such Intimation at Court against the Dissenters and such a Character of them in the former Reigns would have been said to have proceeded from an unchristian Spirit of Persecution but for fear one Insinuation should not have been enough against our present Sufferers in the next Paragraph he saith it over again in other Words to the same purpose Meer Success is certainly one of the worst Arguments in the World of a good Cause and the most improper to satisfy Conscience and yet we find by Experience that in the Issue it is the most successful of all other Arguments and doth in a very odd but effectual way satisfy the Consciences of a great many Men by shewing them their Interests which is the true Purport Intent and English of that Latin Sentence of his dear Friend the Master of the Charter house whom he made Clerk of the Closet in the Dedication of his Archaeologia to K. W. Ne quid detrimenti Respublica capiat ex nimia Caesarâ—s Clementia Oramus supplices From hence I proceed to make some Animadversions upon some Sayings of our Preacher concerning his Heroe which lie scatter'd about his Funeral Sermon (b) P. 29. He tells us he never affected pompous Severities by which we know very well he means the Austerities of Fasting and Abstinence which the Church not only recommends but enjoyns and that (a) P. 21. he complied with the ill Practice of having Pluralities in the former Reigns because it was common and (b) P. 27. intimates also plain enough That the ill Usage he met with by those Reflections which he describes as Calumnies and Reproaches help to break his Heart But now for God's sake how doth the Character of heroick Piety agree to a Man that practised no Austerities and that complied for his Advantage with the corrupt Customs of the Times For heroick is always severe Piety and full of Self-denial and addicted to observe the wholesom Rules and Doctrines of Mortification especially those that are prescribed by the Wisdom of the Church and it never complies with but resists the prevailing Corruptions of the Times like Abraham in Chaldea Lot in Sodom or Daniel in Babylon And with what Congruity did he set him forth for an Example of heroick Vertue who had so little Christian Courage or support from his own Innocency as to sink under the Calumnies of Men which Cato and Socrates and a Thousand brave Heathen Heroes would have despised Certainly this Character of heroick Piety and Vertue agrees much better with the deprived Clergy who are Men generally speaking of more austere Lives and bear not only Calumnies and Reproaches and cruel Mockings but the Loss of all they had with exemplary Patience Courage and Resignation to the Will of God by which they are conformed in their Sufferings to those Worthies which the Apostle proposes for our Imitation in the 11th Chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews and deserve now to be reverenced by all good Christians as Confessors who dare be Honest and Poor and prefer the Truth and Honour of their Religion before the Lands and Revenues of the Church More particularly it agrees much better with the late Archbishop Dr. Sancroft upon whom our Preacher thinks he neatly couched a Reflection when he told us that his Heroe who intruded upon him did not affect pompous Austerities Indeed he practised them but without Pomp or Ostentation And as for his Sufferings of all Sorts both in these and former Times he bore them with exemplary Courage and Chearfulness They had no influence on his Health but quite contrary He blessed God for them and told my Lord N. when his Lordship went to Lambeth to try his Constancy That he had rather suffer any Persecution under a Lawful Prince than be preferred under an Usurper He tells us again (a) P. 28. That few Men observed human Nature better than his Hero or could make larger Allowance for the Frailty of Mankind than he did And so it appears from the Character he gave his Master in his Thanksgiving Sermon for the Victory at Sea There he saith That he was a Prince who hath made it the great Study and Endeavour of his Life to imitate the Divine Perfections as far as the Imperfection of human Nature in this mortal State would admit Before I make any other Reflection upon this Passage I must here tell the World That in the former Reigns no Man could less endure any Thing spoken in the Pulpit though never so modestly and correctly in the Praises of our Kings It was his common Practice to censure it in others on all Occasions and to say That Flattery was so mean and despicable a Thing in it self and savour'd so strong of Interest and Design in the Pulpit that Clergy-men ought to avoid all appearance of it And yet behold how shamefully he flatters his King here and I doubt not (b) See the Remarks upon some late Sermons but it is owing to the ill Example he set the Clergy in this and some former Sermons that we have had of late so many fulsom and despicable Sermons of Flattery as no Age ever saw or will I hope see again But this of his Prince's imitating the Divine Perfections is the highest Strain of all and shews with a Witness what large Allowances he made for the Frailties and Imperfections of Men. For at this rate Abolishing and Abjuring of Episcopacy making War in the most (c) Hostes hi sunt qui Nobis aut quibus nos publicè Bellum Decrevimus Caeteri Latroâ—es aut praedones sunt F. de v. s. thievish and predonical Manner without first demanding Reparation slandering and robbing of Parents massacring in cold Blood Adultery or if there be any Thing worse than these may pass among Divines for human Frailties and the worst of Sinners with those Allowances for the best sort of Saints He tells us (d) P. 19 20. of the great Concourse of the Clergy-men to his Lecture which made People consider him as the
Father and afterwards continued against one another an unnatural War and yet he hath since been a Firebrand to kindle a War in his own Country so much the more unnatural as it is upon the Score of Religion of which he saith in (c) P. 194. his Reffections on Varillas That it were better for Mankind that there were no revealed Religion at all and that human Nature should be left to its self than that there were such a Sort of revealed Religion receiv'd that overthrows all the Principles of Morality I suppose he did not argue at this rate to the Princess of Orange when he perswaded her to consent to the unnatural Invasion of her Father's Kingdom upon the Account of Religion No this is the true Character of Religion which he gives in opposition to that of (d) Reflections p. 39. M. Varillas who as he tells us saith That in Matters of Religion Conscience doth so intirely conquer all the Powers of the Soul and reduces them to such a Slavery that it forces a Man to write that which it dictates without troubling himself whether it be true or false And it is evident from what I have said That he hath had many such Fits of Religion and that he was in a great and long Fit of it all the while he supplied Satan's Place and did the Office of a Tempter to the Princess of Orange till he overcame her into a Consent to dishonour her Father more than Cham did his and after all to take Possession of his Crown Without such Religious Fits of writing Things whether true or false he could never arrive to such Perfection of writing Contradictions to serve turns In his Sermon before the Prince of O. at St. James's he tells us his Royal Highness came abhorring Conquest In his Pastoral Letter he advances his imaginary Conquest of us into an Argument for Allegiance to him and afterwards in his (a) P. 12. Funeral Sermon upon Mr. Boyle The true Names for Conquest were Robbery and Murther and it was nothing but a specious Colour for the worst Things that human Nature is capable of Injustice and Cruelty Thus is he troubled with the same Fits with which he so often reproaches Varillas and I fear I shall make it appear he was in one of them when he wrote his Funeral Sermon upon Dr. Tillotson though I heartily wish he had been free But to go on to shew how Unfortunate he hath been in weakning his own Authority in the first Volume of his History of the Reformation he (b) P. 108. When Hen. IV. had treasonably Usurpt the Crown speaks of Hen. IV. as of a Traytor and Usurper and yet as I observed before contrary to all the Acts of Parliament which declare him and his Son and Grandson Usurpers and which it is a Disparagement to his Character as an Historian to suppose him ignorant of in his Enquiry into the present State of Affairs he asserts That the Deposition of Ric. II. was never condemned by any subsequent Acts of Parliament Surely when he wrote this his Conscience was in a great Fit neither considering what he had written before nor whether he wrote true or false The next Place in which I must set him to be viewed in opposition to himself is his Preface to Lactantius where I must compare what he hath written of Persecution Persecutors and the Persecuted with what he hath done against the present Sufferers against whom he hath been a very Bonner to the utmost of his Power and thirsted after their Destruction Shortly after the Revolution asking an honourable Gentleman if he would not come into the Government And he answering He could not then saith he we will drive you out of the Kingdom or you shall drive us On Sept. 4. 1690. he told (c) See Paper 1. in the Appendix Dr. Beach whom I mention with that great Esteem which is due to his Piety and Learning that he hoped by the next Christmas not to see one deprived Clergy-man left in the Kingdom saying that they were worse than Papists and that he would shew more Mercy to a Popish Priest than to any one of them And when the Doctor replied I hope we shall find Justice if not Mercy He answered I will shew you neither I will prosecute you to the utmost Extremity And I believe the Doctor hath found that he was as good as his Word This Righteous and Gentle Temper of his in obstructing Justice as well as Mercy from the suffering Remnant appeared the last Year in the House of Lords where he spoke not against the Cause but the Person of an honourable and most worthy Gentleman against whom because he had been Kind and Hospitable to his Fellow-Sufferers he harangued it in a manner altogether unbecoming his Character both as a Bishop and a Judg. Had he argued against the Justice or Equity of his Cause he had spoken as became his Place but having nothing to say against that he spoke against him as a Person disaffected to the Government who made his House a common Harbour to the Enemies of it This might have looked proper had the Gentleman sued to the House for a Favour but being a Suiter for Justice and before the last Resort he spoke not like a Judg but an Enemy and a Persecutor who regards Men more than Causes and indeed like one who hath neither Bowels of Mercy nor Conscience of Justice for those unfortunate Persons whose greatest Fault is to use his (a) Preface to Lactantius own Words That they cannot think of some Things as he doth nor submit their Reasons to his In like manner he inveighed bitterly against a most pious and learned Gentleman to his Father for keeping Company with and entertaining some of the Non-swearing Clergy whom in his Preface to his four Discourses he calls false Brethren who pretend to be of the Church of England but are not and are of the Synagogue of Satan This evil Spirit of Persecution shewed it self in a Zeal for an Oath of Abjuration when speaking like himself in the House he said to this Effect Let him die the Death of a Dog and be buried with the Burial of an Ass that wishes or hopes for the return of K James It hath also shewed its cloven Foot in his Funeral Sermon and it would be endless to recite the intemperate Speeches which upon the least Occasion he is apt to vent against a Company of Suffering Men who to use the Words of his own Plea for the Persecuted (b) Ibid. have no other Fault but that they cannot shake off the Principles of their Education which saith he stick so fast to the worst sort of Men that Atheists themselves cannot shake them off so entirely but that they will be apt to return upon them Thus he that pretended to be so far from Persecuting Men of any Perswasion that he apologiz'd even for Atheists is now all Fury and Persecution against those who as
though he was unwilling to accept it yet their persisting in their Intentions made him think it was the Call and Voice of God and so he submitted To which I shall say no more but that in judging of a Call we are to consider not only who Calls us but to what we are Called and that Kings may call and tempt and importune us to commit deadly Sins as well as other Men. Furthermore by the Example of the Lord Protector Cromwel we may see that when Kings call us we are to consider well what kind of Kings they are or else we may sometimes be in danger to mistake the Temptations of the Devil and our own wicked Hearts for the Call of God He tell us also (a) P. 3. That he would speak with great Reserves of him and so he hath For how often was he wont to declare his Resolution that he would never be a Bishop I have often heard him admir'd upon the Account of that self-denying Resolution and also observed how venerable his Refusal of some Bishopricks would render his Name to Posterity But when Men make such Resolutions they make them it seems with a tacit Reserve to the persisting Call of a King For I can name two Persons now in the Places of deprived Bishops and one of them to my certain knowledg who vehemently declared against taking of the Places of any of the deprived Bishops But I suppose their Majesties made choice of them too as the fittest Persons and that they looked upon their persisting in their Intentions as the Call and Voice of God dispensing not only with their former most deliberate Resolutions but also with all the Fundamental Laws of Ecclesiastical Unity to the contrary the Examples of the best and purest Ages and the Canons of the Church He also tells us (b) P. 10 11. That his first Education was among the Puritans but of the best Sort and that he was soon free'd from his first Impressions and Prejudices or rather that he was never mastered with them But I have reason to think that they were not the best sort of Puritans under whom he had his first Education First Because his Father very early turned Anabaptist which gave some Occasion to call his Baptism into question And Secondly Because the best sort of Puritans as hath been often shewed were far from the Principles of Resistance and Rebellion but under whomsoever he had his first Education he came seasoned to the University of Cambridge with those Principles For not long after he came thither King Charles the First was brought by Cambridge to Hampton Court and Lodging at Sir John Cuts his House at Childerly near that University the Scholars went thither to kiss his Hand But he and some few more had so signaliz'd themselves for those they then called Round-heads that they were not admitted to that Honour with the rest of the Scholars Within a Year or two after he went out Midsummer-Batchelor of Arts by which having locally qualified himself for a Fellowship he got the Rump's Mandamus for Dr. Gunning's which I think one of his own Gang enjoyed a little before him as a Reward for his good affection to the Cause From that time to his discontinuance he governed the College the Senior Fellows not daring to oppose him because of the Interest he had with his great Masters And so zealous was he for them That the Corner of the College which he and his Pupils took up in the new Building was called the Round-head Corner And when King Charles the Second was beaten at Worcester he sent for the Tables in which the College Grace was written and after the Passage of Thanksgiving for their Benefactors Te Laudamus pro Benefactoribus nostris c. he added with his own Hand and of his own Head Praesertim pro nupera Victoria contra Carolum Stuartum in Agro Wigorniensi reportata or to that effect In the Year 1656. or the Beginning of 1657. he discontinued from the College being invited by Prideaux Cromwel's Attorney General to teach his Son and do the Office of a Chaplain in his Family and the Reader may please to take notice That his Son was the same Mr. Prideaux who was in the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion I have related all this upon very good Authority to shew that Dr. Tillotson had not his first Education under the best Puritans and that he was not so soon free'd from the Prejudices and Impressions of it but that hitherto he was perfectly master'd by them And whether or no they had not some influence over him all his Life long I leave the Reader from what I have said of him in this Chapter to judge He tell us again (a) P. 11. That though ha was soon free'd from the first Prejudices of his Puritanical Education yet he stuck to the Strictness of Life to which he was bred under them This is one of our Preacher's side-wind Reflections upon the true Sons and Daughters of the Church of England as if they were not wont to breed up their Children in as strict an Exercise of true Piety and Vertue as the Puritans did He also saith (b) P. 20. That his extraordinary Worth forced some who had no Kindness for him to advance him THE SOME he means is only King Charles the Second who plainly perceived that he was not quite free'd from the Prejudices of his first Education for when he officiated in the Closet instead of Bowing at the Name of Jesus or rather to Jesus at the mentioning of his saving Name that he might seem to do something and yet not do the thing it self he used to step and bend backwards casting up his Eyes to Heaven which the King observing said He Bowed the wrong way as the Quakers do when they salute their Friends And yet though his Majesty who was a great Discerner of Men perfectly knew him he preferred him to gratify the Heads of a Party And may all Princes who for Politick Ends prefer those for whom they have no Kindness and who have not true Kindness for them be requited as he was He tells us (a) P. 13. That he studied all the Ancient Philosophers and Books of Morality But bate me an Ace of that quoth Bolton for I will be bold to say He was so far from Reading them all that he scarce Saw them all or had the curiosity to read them especially those in the Greek Language Then he tells us That among the Fathers St. Basil and St. Chrysostom were those he chiefly read But how came he who had such a superior Judgment to read so many Philosophers and so few Fathers and to take up with Two of Five more which our Preacher saith (b) See his Pref. before Bedel's Life were the Beauties of the Silver Age of the Church Methinks one that desired to be a consummat Divine should have been as willing to read the great Athanasius the Gregorys St. Jerom