of dis-uniting Protestants and yet at the same time uncharitably representing the best Defenders of the Reformation under the odious and invidious Characters of Papists or Popishly affected by questioning the Jurisdiction of the Bishops in temporal causes that by that means they may weaken their Ecclesiastical Power by striking at the King through the sides of his loyal and well-affected Clergy and by doing all this and a great deal more out of a dissembled Zeal for Unity and Peace and out of a passionate Concern for the Honour and Safety of the King and Church they doe abundantly more mischief than either the Dissenters themselves or they who are the most unmanageable and indiscreet in the expressions of a bitter and unchristian Animosity against them because these as being prejudiced and profess'd Parties will not be heard so equally on both sides Secondly a second Cause though indeed in the order of causality it may well enough deserve the first place of the Continuance of such an unnatural Separation among us notwithstanding there is so little or rather nothing at all to be said in justification of so prejudicial and so unwarrantable a Practice is the Necessity or Revenge of those who at the happy revolution of his Majesty's return like the rising of the Sun with healing in his wings to heal the Sores of three divided Kingdoms being ejected in great numbers out of those Livings and Benefices of which they were then possessed being unable to digg unless it were in the Vineyard and being ashamed to begg being desirous to reak their Revenge upon the Government which had ejected them onely for that reason because it could not trust them and because they would not obey it being tainted with the Leaven of the good old Cause being soundly seasoned with Democratical and Demagogical Principles of which it is very hard for a thorough Common-wealth's man especially when he is no Philosopher to rid himself being in some small hopes as drowning men are when they catch at a Reed of reaping a new Harvest out of the Church lands and out of the Spoils of the Crown being encouraged and abetted by men of like Principles and Practices and Circumstances with themselves by good old Officers that had been in Commission by Proprietours that had lost those Tenements and Hereditaments that never were their own by inconsiderate Women that are naturally fond of Saintship and Persecution by Men that were Bigots to a Party or Dependents upon an Interest that wanted a Wife or would oblige a Chapman or insinuate themselves into a Last Will and Testament by the Womens caressing their Husbands and the Husbands persuading their Wives by causes that cannot be justifi'd and causes that must not be named the black Fraternity of the short robe were at length so far emboldened as notwithstanding the Severity of those wholesome Laws whose edge was rebated by the fatal Clemency of a too Gracious Prince towards men that ought not to be trusted and cannot be obliged to own and justifie a Separation which is now grown to that excessive height that the Contention is no longer about Liberty but Dominion they break the Laws openly without regard to Justice or to Shame and to propagate a Succession of Law-breakers like themselves they have ordained an Under-wood of Non-conforming Shrubs who will in time grow up to be Cedars of Rebellion and come by the Priesthood much by the same right and title that Oliver came by the Protectourship or Trincalo by his Dukedom So that it is now with the Dissenters as it was the Israelites in Jeroboam's time they have their separate Assemblies and their distinct Altars their Priests not of the Levitical or Aaronical Tribe much less of the more perfect Melchisedecian Order but of the dreggs and refuse of the People and Calves in abundance the Idols of the Faction as far as from Dan to Bethel But Thirdly a third Cause of that dangerous Non-conformity which prevails among us is a certain sort of Opiniatrity or Affectation or Newfangleness which in all Ages usually possesses the ordinary sort of People by which they are alwaies apt to quarrel and find fault with the present Establishment let it be never so wholesome and if it were not for this Cause the other two Causes which I have mentioned would want a subject upon which to work but certainly if men would seriously consider with themselves how dangerous all Innovations in the general are and how destructive oftentimes to the publick Peace how little most of them are like to get by Innovation and how much they may lose how small and inconsiderable how unreasonable and unwarrantable the present Differences are how necessary it is there should be some Establishment and how impossible that any should please all and that this is but to perpetuate quarrels by the nicety of some and the design of others from one generation to another without any measure moderation or end to the inexpressible and unconceivable disturbance of the World they would not then think it worth their while to lose the Quiet of their own minds their Charity for others and the good opinion of others for them to crumble into Sects and Parties to embroil us in infinite and inextricable Difficulties at home and to expose us to the unavoidable Dangers of a foreign yoak and a foreign Religion from abroad onely to gratifie the Designs of proud or discontented or necessitous men to feed Contempt and Ignorance themselves and to cloath Want of loyalty learning good nature and good manners It is true indeed that the Wisdome of this World is Foolishness with God and that the Wisdome of God is Foolishness with this World and that they are opposite the one to the other but then by the Wisdome of this World is meant that Carnal Mind that hath a greater consideration for a Temporal Interest than for the Interest of Truth and Vertue for the Commands of God or the precepts of the Gospel but that men that have little or no Learning of their own and yet are unassisted by those extraordinary helps of Utterance and Supernatural Illumination with which the Apostolical times were furnished men that are so far from understanding what Reason is that they decry it men that are steered wholly by considerations of Interest by impulses of Passion by an habit of Prejudice and a principle of Revenge that these of all others should be thought the fittest to Instruct the People and to have the care and conduct of such precious things as are the Souls of men committed to their Charge that these should be thought worthy to be the instruments of our Confusion who have neither the wit nor the honesty to make us Happy who design us no Good and can do us none if they did design it is a thing which I am very confident will find no manner of countenance from Scripture and is utterly unable to plead the least shadow of a Grant or Commission from above An
generous ambition and Mr. Hobs saith somewhere excellently well nisi qui laudem amant pauci faciunt laudabilia so we may say with equal truth nisi qui ambiunt honores pauci faciunt quae sunt honoribus digna The Scripture it self bids us look to the recompence of reward and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling and it is certain that no man will or can doe any thing with a steady purpose of mind wherein he does not propose some interest to himself The prospect of such advantages in future makes a man obedient as well as industrious for the present and by setting an example of submission to his superiours and of diligence in his station and emploiment he is in both respects an instrument of great honour and great service to the Church he is in the ready way to make a wise and excellent person and will be the more readily obeyed when he comes to govern for having shewed an example of obedience before But if there were not such honours and advantages to be met with in the Clergy then there would certainly these two notoririous inconveniences follow first that the governours of the church would lose very much of their authority and power which they cannot do without prejudice to the government it self and secondly that the want of due encouragement would produce in the inferiour Clergy a scorbutick idleness and inactivity a want of due concern either for the peace of the Church or for the honour of it it would subject them to the humours of the people from whose kindness they might in this case expect as great or greater secular advantages than they could propose to themselves in any other course so that instead of being the instruments of obedience they would by this means become the speaking trumpets of faction and so it was seen in the late disorderly times when the Episcopacy was demolisht and the dignitary lands were all of them confiscate men preach'd up rebellion for lecture contributions and I doubt not but many of them acted much against their consciences for no other reason but to please the rabble It is an old saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not to be denied but there are some instances of very gallant men to be found in the reformed churches abroad and that too where they have not the benefit of episcopal government but I dare appeal to the dissenters themselves if they will speak their consciences whether ever there was so plentifull an harvest of wise and excellently learned men as are to be found at this day among the Clergy of the church of England and whether among themselves there be any such thing as learning to be met with whether both city and country are not now better furnished than in the late times with excellent preachers and men that can speak sense which is more than they can doe or whether the Universities are not better stored with men of great attainments on the one hand and great hopes on the other than in the days when humane learning and that abominable idol carnal reason were for the most part banish'd with the King and the Bishops the reason of which cannot possibly be referred to any other cause but onely the more ingenuous Principles that are now abroad and the greater encouragements men have now before them to study and take pains and deserve well of the world This is certain that the wisedom of Princes hath always been so sensible of the usefulness of ecclesiasticks to the service of the publick for the security honour and safety of their governments for the composing and calming the minds of their people into a peaceable and obedient temper that they have thought no honours and advantages too great to bestow upon them as a reward of their merit and to make their authority still greater in the eyes of the people and it was very wisely provided by our ancestours in such a government as this is where the people have so great a share in the making of those laws by which they are afterwards to be obliged that the Bishops should have a place allotted them in Parliament as well as the nobility or the commons have and that for their greater honour and to give them a right of suffrage in the house of Lords they should have Baronies annext to their respective sees For where the people have so great an interest in the enacting of their own laws there if the Clergy be totally excluded if there be none admitted into the assembly to look after the interest of the ecclesiastical state it will most certainly and unavoidably come to pass that by the envy or the ill designs of men the Clergy will be deprest and trampled on at some time or other which it can never be without detriment to the state upon supposition that they are at all advantagious or serviceable to it Nay if it be granted that they are of any use it must be granted likewise that they are the most usefull persons that do or can belong to a society and therefore ought to be the most highly honoured and esteemed for what greater blessing can there be than peace or what greater plague or calamity can befall a nation than to be embroiled in sedition enflamed with strife raging with opposite and eager passions what better instruments can there be in any state or kingdom than they whose business and whose study it is to exhort to peace and charity and obedience to submission to the government and love to one another Certainly if the Lawyers get so much and are so highly caressed and rewarded sometimes for ending controversies and sometimes for making them endless sometimes for setting men together by the ears and at others for parting the fray to the disadvantage of the true pretender the Divines are much more worthy to be honoured and rewarded whose business it is to prevent all strife and contention and who have perhaps determined as many controversies in a cheap and amicable way at home as ever the other decided at the bar to the ruine sometimes of both the parties concerned and always to the signal detriment and disadvantage of one I do not speak this to disparage or undervalue the learned Gentlemen of the long robe whose profession I acknowledge in every state to be not onely usefull but necessary to its peace and welfare so far as it is not abused by ill men or by tedious delays and by traversing of courts and actions to the infinite vexation and oppression of the subject But I say the prevention of all strife is a much more noble excellent and usefull thing than the deciding of controversies after they are actually begun as it is better to prevent an ague by a wholesome diet or by a regular course of life or by preventive medicaments before hand than to remove the fit or by degrees perhaps the disease it self by many repeated doses of the Jesuites powder which
to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own desence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or distrubance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authority that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the supersluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine Service which may very well be done without any Schism or Separation from the body of the Church abroad either on the one part or the other Yet for private men to separate from the National Establishment upon pretence that the Ceremonies are too burthensome or too many is manifestly unlawfull The reason is because this will be lyable to the same Inconveniences to which a separation upon pretence of greater Purity is expos'd and in both cases if every private man shall be allow'd to judge for himself and to proceed to a Separation in pursuance of that judgment so infinite are the humours the sancies the prejudices the perversities of some men so fond are they of Novelty and Change so apt to controul Authority and so desirous to be govern'd only by their own Measures that there can be no lasting Establishment in the World but the Discipline of the Church will be alwaies reeling like a Drunken Man and driven to and fro like a Wave of the Sea by every Capricious wind of Innovation We will suppose for the present in favour of the Dissenters because they cannot prove it that there are too many Ceremonies in our Church yet I presume it will be granted that there are not above four or five or half a dozen too many or if you will to make it a plump number and to put the Objection into better shape let them be half a score which I believe upon an exact computation will go a great way in the Ceremonies of the Church of England and let all these be imposed as indispensable conditions of Communion 'T is pretty severe I confess to lay so great a stress upon Indifferent Matters but yet certainly no man in his wits will ever pretend that this is such an intollerable burthen as that he must needs separate rather than comply but if there be any that are so hardy to do it though I will not discommend them for their courage a vertue of which in this contentious Age we have a great deal of need yet in my opinion they deserve rather to be soundly Laught at than seriously Confuted What hath been said of the Churches Power in retrenching the number of her Ceremonies the same is likewise true as to the Ceremonies themselves that they may from time to time be altered and changed for others in their stead by the Authority of the Church as shall seem most Expedient to that publique Wisdome for the great Purpose of Edification but for every private person to challenge this Right to himself is unlawfull because liable to the same inconveniences with separating under colour of Ceremonious Superfluities or of purer Ordinances and purer Ordinances and purer Worship which are therefore justly to be suspected to proceed out of a bad design because they never can have any end Saint Paul in several places of his Epistles expresses great tenderness for the infirmity of the weak Brother but yet if the Instances of such his condescention be examined they will be sound to be of a quite different nature from those which make up the pretences of our daies as consisting first in the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which as looking like a participation of the table of Devils and as being expresly prohibited by a
had been nothing else would have been sufficient in the way of instance besides what I have urged from the nature and necessity of the thing it self to prove that humane institutions for the better ordering and government of religious duties are not onely lawfull in themselves but that they ought to be obeyed by us if there be no particular reason from the quality of the thing enjoyned to the contrary as they were by Christ who gave in this an example of obedience and we cannot be his Disciples if we do not follow it But as it was not proper in a discourse that was intended to have the shape and appearance of a Sermon to launch out into so large a Philological disquisition of which there are so very few of those that hear Sermons that can be supposed to be competent Judges so indeed it was needless to give a particular instance when our Saviour's communion with the Jewish Church during the whole time of his sojourning among men is it self an aggregate of a thousand arguments to prove the lawfulness of humane impositions for without such impositions there can be no communion any more than there can be a City or Commonwealth without Laws or a society without some rules and orders to govern it self by the submitting to which rules is that in which the very being of a society consists and the breaking of those measures by an universal disobedience is a disparking the society a pulling down the pale and barrier of the body politick and a letting all things loose into the state of nature that is into a state of tumult confusion and disorder For the other Diatriba upon the Shem Hameporash as the Rabbins call it or the Four lettered name of God I cannot say that it came in so well but rather must acknowledge that it was too slight an occasion which was taken hold of to entertain the Reader 's curiosity upon it but as it happens in conversation if a man leave the company but for half a minute he shall find oftentimes the discourse as much altered when he returns again as if he had staid away a thousand years or as if it were another company into which he was now fallen so it will always be in writing likewise if a man do not keep a guard upon his thoughts but allow his fancy a liberty of ranging which it will easily do in a small space of time over things at an infinite distance from one another However an essay of this nature considered by it self though it will not contribute any thing to the use of common life yet it cannot be unpleasant to any man to know for certain what the true pronunciation of that peculiar name of God was by which he is pleased to signalize and distinguish himself in an especial manner from all created and dependent beings that are called Gods but are not what they are called that name whose true and genuine pronunciation hath been lost for so long a succession of ages for neither Josephus nor Philo Judaeus were acquainted with it and the Jewish Rabbins are generally agreed which discovers how ignorant they are themselves and how unconscionably given to impose upon others that it was known onely to the High-Priest and never pronounced by him neither but onely once a year in the most holy place when he brought his piaculary censer within the vail upon the solemn day of expiation For I have not onely solidly demonstrated what the true pronunciation of this name was but I have proved that there were other names of God in Scripture that were equally sacred though it is true they are owing to the same root from whence this is derived and that it was not onely known among the Jews themselves but that also the heathen nations were acquainted with it for Rabshekah in the sacred volume mentions it expresly and Philo Byblius the translatour of Sanchuniathon a very ancient writer of the Phoenician story who lived in the interval of the Judges hath made it so far from being any secret that he hath long ago divulged it to the whole learned World If Your Lordship shall demand of me what it was that moved me having suffered them to lie asleep so long to publish these papers just at this nick of time there are two things which I presume to offer as the reasons why I took this opportunity after so long a silence to let them come abroad and speak for themselves and for the Church of England which they pretend to maintain as well as for my self the writer of them who having suffered so much upon their account they are bound in justice to doe me what right they can which I imagine they will sufficiently do by adventuring abroad and putting themselves upon a fair and publick tryal One thing that moved me to publish them at this time was that I thought they would be as much or rather more seasonable at this juncture than at that in which they were written and for this I had not onely mine own opinion but as I may interpret it Your Lordship 's also together with the concurring suffrage of all those reverend learned and judicious persons who are now employed as I have been informed by the particular appointment and direction of Your Lordship whose paternal care suffers no possible expedient to be unattempted to procure the peace and unity of this Church to satisfie the dissenters as many of them as act upon a principle of conscience without design in all the pretended matters of difference between us and to clear up the misty Atmosphere of religious doubt which hath been raised by zeal but is not yet dispelled for want of knowledge a design worthy of so great a Prelate so truly pious so profoundly wise so indefatigably good and suitable to the nobleness of so large a mind that hath joyned so much personal honour and so much honour of inheritance together And though in the midst of so many great performances in which the strength eloquence and prudence of the writers maintain an equal combat with each other I cannot hope that mine will doe any thing which is not effectually done by some of theirs yet I thought it my duty upon this occasion not to be wanting to the common cause and rather to betray though I hope there is no danger of that my want of skill or ability to maintain it as it ought to be maintained than of affection to serve it to the utmost of my power If I have been so fortunate to stumble upon any thing which hath not been thought of or considered by some of them it is a new mite cast into the treasury of the Temple and ought to be accepted courteously not for its own weight but for the chearfulness and good intention wherewith it is offered without which the rich Hecatomb is not of so much value as the poor man's Turtle-dove or his handfull of flower If I agree with them in any thing as
Qui mihi which would have done me admirable service and that is Quis talia fando Myrmidonum Dolopum ve aut duri Miles Ulyssi Temperet à Lachrymis But these two being both of them prostitute citations which deny no authour that hath occasion for them I shall be content to say in homely downright English without the advantage of historical embellishments or Poetical flowers that it was impossible for me to be concerned as I am for the peace of the Church and the happiness of mankind without expressing an hearty indignation that we must be made miserable for the sake of trifles and by the bold artifices of conventicling varlets that are as ignorant as they are disloyal fellows that pretend to I know not what influences of the Spirit onely for that reason because they are unskilfull in Letters men that are so far from being qualifi'd to instruct the people that they understand not common sense themselves and are the most contemptible idiots under the cope of Heaven I appeal to Your Lordship and to all manking whether this be not sufficient to justifie a passion and whâ—ther it be not a man's duty to express himself after the example of our Saviour with the same severity and deserved sharpness with which he treated the Scribes and Pharisees and Hypocrites of his time nay it is still more our duty to imitate that example because there is greater cause and matter of indignation for the Pharisees though they were indeed Hypocrites and deceivers and as Josephus assures us a pragmatical Sect and very great medlers with affairs of State yet they were many of them admirable scholars and men of great understanding and though they may be justly upbraided with want of honesty yet with want of learning they could not they had that in abundance and that was one reason that made them despise the Gospel at that rate that they did as being preached by the Carpenter's Son and by a few poor Fishermen and illiterate people But we are fallen into the hands of Fools as well as Knaves men that have neither honesty nor sense nor learning that preach as with the same lowdness that the Thunder does or the Cataracts of Nile which is musick onely for Crocodiles and monsters so with no better eloquence or more intelligible meaning and they encourage and animate one another like Mariners weighing anchor they set their shoulders to the government and muster all the strength and all the noise they can make and resolve with themselves to unhinge the Kingdom and overturn the world by importunity and clamour Wherefore let any expression be never so severe yet I desire no allowance to be made me onely let men consider whether what I say be true or no for upon supposition that I speak no more than the truth the things are of that consequence that wonderfull and yet that manifest and plain importance that there can be no severity too much no zeal too fierce nor any Steliteutick or Satry too invective David in his time said it of himself that That zeal of God's house had eaten him up but we have lived to see the Phrase inverted and seem to have eaten up the zeal of God's house and if there be any thing that can excuse those bitter imprecations which David showrs in such plenty upon his enemies which cannot well be done by any thing but by saying that they were enemies to God and to Religion as well as to him then certainly we shall still be more excusable or rather it will be highly commendable and praise-worthy in us if without the curses of David we onely give a due character of the seducers of our times the disturbers of our peace and the most dangerous enemies of manking that the people may avoid them and leave them as they do very well deserve to be a curse and calamity to themselves Let any man judge if a concern for any thing be in any case excusable whether it be fit to talk of matters of this nature and importance with the same indifference as if he were demonstrating a dry proposition in Euclid or making out a crabbed probleme in Apollonius Pergeus being very well satisfied nay and perhaps overjoyed as Archimedes was when he leap'd out of the Bath and Pythagoras when he offered an Hecatomb for a discovery that he hath found the truth himself and so sleeps quietly with an opinion of his skill and with the satisfaction of a sober mathematical assurance but is not at all concerned whether any body else either know or believe as he does and whether they do or no yet the discovery may be such however difficult and intricate in it self that it may be of little or no consequence to humane life Nay I am so far from repenting the severity of any expression I have used that though it should happen to me as it did to him in Horace Populus me sibilat the Mobile are displeased and angry at me yet notwithstanding I would go on as he did at mihi plaudo Ipse domi and I shall be glad when it seems good to fate to walk along with him to the end of the verse tacita nummos contemplor in Arca. But if any of that party shall pretend to take up the Quarter-staff against me though he will doe well to follow my example and take the advice of Horace along with him Sumite materiam vestris qui scribitis aequam Viribus versate diu quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri yet if he behave himself with civility towards me I will either not answer him at all or I will doe it with respect according as his performance is but if he have a mind to shew his angry parts I will set him such a copy of Satyr as neither he nor any of his party shall be able to follow and I will let him see that I can doe what Isaac Vossius once threatned in a case of small moment in comparison of this Vtimur nunc leni flabello usuri etiam flagro si porrò molesti esse pergant I will shew him that I have Scorpions as well as Whips and that without translating Ovid against Ibis I shall find matter enough at home to make him asham'd of himself and his performance and without putting my self to the drudgery of imprecation a thing very inconsistent with the goodness of my nature which enclines me very strongly to wish well to all mankind all I shall doe is to turn him upon himself if he dare own his name otherwise I have neither the patience to beat the air to no purpose nor the courage and hardiness to fight with Goblins that vanish out of sight and assault a man behind and before and on all sides at once without any possibility of being hit themselves but let him own himself as an authour ought to do and let him write so as to deserve an answer and then let us have a clear stage and fair
so passionate exhortations to the Presbyters to pay that duty and obedience which they owed to their Bishop as the messenger of God and the vicegerent of Christ in that particular diocese wherein he was placed but when all these endeavours of good and holy men proved ineffectual as all exhortation is ineffectual with the generality of mankind where there is not a power sufficient to force obedience it seemed good at last to the wisedom of the Church to remove the occasions of such evils for the future by enlarging the power of the Bishop and to curb the insolence of the Presbytery by removing its cause which was their meeting together with him in the diocesan convocation upon any occasional emergence that might happen but yet the Bishop was not by this means rendred absolute neither but there lay an appeal from him to the Metropolitan or Patriarch to a provincial or oecumenical dyet and to the standing canons and constitutions of the church which it was not in his power to violate or alter and in which all the great lines of obedience were contained And this alteration in the government of the church depended upon the same reason with the disanulling popular elections either of Bishops or particular pastours which being found by long and wofull experience to be the occasion of perpetual tumult and disorder in the church the fruitfull parent of everlasting feuds animosities and factions to the unspeakable detriment both of church and state was in process of time partly disused of it self by the peoples being weary of so troublesome a right and partly by the interposition of imperial rescripts and by the authority of the civil laws of our own and other nations It was very natural in the beginnings of the church to allow some what more to the Presbyters in consultation with their Bishop and to the people in the choice of both than was consistent with the policy of after-times because Pueris dant crustula blandi Doctores elementa velint ut discere prima when churches and ecclesiastical societies were first to be gathered men were to be allured by privileges and to be enticed by power a thing of which all mankind are naturally very fond as well as to be convinced by arguments to espouse the cause and interest of Christianity but when the religion of Christ had taken deep root in the world when the temptations of honour and preferment and the dangers of persecution from the Pagan powers were now utterly removed and extinguished and when at the same time the world being turned Christian the dangers and inconveniences of popular elections increased with the number of the electours and the Presbytery by reason of their number began to be formidable to the Bishop as well as troublesome and tumultuous among one another which must of necessity have been the occasion of very great calamities and very sad as well as frequent revolutions if a timely stop were not put this made it necessary upon the same principle of convenience to abrogate this power upon which it seems first to have been introduced if indeed it were introduced upon any reason at all but onely a gradual and insensible encroachment in both cases and upon the supinity in or neglect of the governours of the church who did not possibly foresee those horrid inconveniences with which this way of management would afterwards be attended For my part I am so firmly of opinion that the great design of religion is charity good-will and peace that I take it to be a certain argument of an institution or custome essentially bad when it is directly calculated for the disturbance of the world and whatever becomes of the antiquity of the business which is used to afford matter of specious discourse on both sides of the question in several important cases and particularly in these which I have so lately mentioned yet if it could be proved that antiquity and interest were fallen out with one another it is in this case but reasonable to consider that the longer we and our fore-fathers have laboured under the painfull and prejudicial consequences of errour the more it would behove us to think of a reformation which if it be not allowed to be a good argument in behalf of truth the Protestant Religion will be utterly unable to defend it self and we should consider likewise that even in point of antiquity nature and the standing interest of the world are much ancienter things than any the oldest custome can pretend to be and therefore if antiquity be the measure by which we are resolved to proceed it will follow that nature and interest must prescribe to custome and not custome to them Nay if it could be never so demonstrably proved that our Saviour did by his example or by his institution recommend to posterity the presbyterian modell or the congregational way though it can hardly be supposed that he who was God as well as man could be guilty of so great a mistake in the true art and mystery of government yet these being found afterwards by experience to be very inconsistent with the great end of the Gospel which is charity and peace it is manifest that the means having onely a relative or conditional nature and being to be either used or rejected in proportion to their fitness or unsuitableness to their end the end of the Gospel which is peace would have obliged posterity to alter that institution though of Christ himself which was found by experience to be inconsistent with it or rather since the declared design of our Saviour's coming into the world was to reconcile God to men and men to one another and since the causeless feuds and animosities of men do set them at enmity with God as well as among themselves since they extinguish that calm serene and charitable spirit without which neither our persons nor our sacrifices can be accepted since it is impossible in the language of St. John to love God whom we have not seen unless we can also love our brother whom we have seen this would have been a plain argument when he preached peace and yet established such a form of government as had a direct or a comparative tendency to confusion one of which is the case of the Independent churches and the other of the Presbyterian form with relation to the more perfect and compleat establishment of the Episcopal subordination I say it would have been a plain argument either that he had war in his heart notwithstanding that his words were smoother than oyle and that though he talked of peace yet he designed contention or else if he were sincere in what he did that he did not understand the message he came about and in either of those cases he must be acknowledged to be a gross impostour when he pretended to be sent from God for God sends no man to disturb the world unless it be for our sins as other great plagues and calamities are inflicted but
Precepts of obedience whose persons are and ought to be inviolable by the laws of nature and by the unalterable constitutions upon which all humane society is founded which can never be at peace within it self if the sovereign be accountable to any power but of God And though I do not think there can be such a thing in nature as an universal Bishop any more than there can be an oecumenical Monarch whom all mankind shall obey it being an unmanageable and unwieldy charge which no one man can possibly undergo with so much care and vigilance as is intrinsick and essential to the duty of a Bishop yet thus much I believe that let a temporal dominion be as large as it will it is necessary to the ends of an ecclesiastical society which is to provide for the peace and unity of all its members that as there is one King or Monarch over the whole so there should also be one Patriarch or Metropolite to whom all the rest of the Bishops should be in some sort accountable and upon whom they should have a dependence as their respective dioceses are accountable to themselves and as the particular flocks are likewise to pay a spiritual obedience to the several pastours or presbyters that are placed over them because by this means it comes to pass that the government is all of a piece and the unity of the church which is Christ's body is preserved by the members being fitly framed together as well with respect to one another as to their head Without this it is impossible to prevent schisms and contentions in the church and by consequence troubles and revolutions in the state or at least there is not all the care taken to prevent them which humane prudence and foresight might have used and for the same reason that there are such differences and inequalities in power there ought also to be a like disparity in the outward formalities of secular appearance and greatness otherwise the establishment of such a subordinate power will be a design that will not take effect an establishment that can neither be so strong nor so lasting as it is intended to be For as obedience is the cause of peace so are respect and reverence the most natural and the most lasting causes of obedience and it is that which they call the Typhus secularis the pomp and vanity of this wicked world as vain and as wicked as it is it is a shew of grandeur an appearance of power a plentifull table a numerous dependance and a long train of moenical servants belonging to a wise man who knows how to make use of these things for the good of the world that is the most certainly productive cause of reverence and respect it is that which bating the terrours of the rods and axes and setting the fears of punishment aside hath a magnetick nature to attract obedience and a power of persuasion to make it an easie and a voluntary thing Whereas though it be true that no society can subsist without fear yet it is true likewise that it can never possibly be strong and lasting unless that fear be tempered by esteem and love and as the latter of these without the former would be every whit as unconstant and uncertain as the changeable humour of a fickle mistress so would the former divorc'd and separated from the latter be in its subject the vassallage of slaves and in its object the barbarity and fierceness of a cruel tyrant which will not be endured any longer than needs must For man is naturally a disobedient creature and therefore when he feels himself abused and opprest there is his interest added to his natural inclination to prompt him to rebell but when a government proceeds by wise and sober measures though every man would be glad to be uppermost himself yet when he sees a moral impossibility lying in his way that ever he should arrive to the top of his desires and when he can propose greater and more certain advantages to himself by obeying his superiours than by conspiring or murmuring against them this creates in him an artificial or a secondary inclination to be content with his condition and to obey the authority that is placed over him and still the wiser any man is the more he considers the mischiefs of contention the sad effects of confusion the greater likelyhood that there is of losing his own fortune in the publick scramble than of getting another man's besides the tenderness that all men have for life and the folly of encountring with the most dreadfull dangers upon an improbable prospect of advantage and this makes him the more willing and ready to acquiesce in present things and to propose to himself no other than such advantages as may be acquired with the good leave of the government and with consistence to his duty But where the mold and frame of the constitution it self is such that men are in a manner upon a levell with their governours and do by consequence universally despise them here is a conspiracy ready formed without the White-horse consults or the Wild-house caballs to resist and overthrow it and the general disposition which is in all to disobey makes the government it self precarious and uncertain which was the great fault of the Presbyterian establishment for besides that equality is the parent of disorder the eternal source of strife animosity and contention and breaks out unavoidably into independency anarchy and confusion I say besides this men do not so easily submit themselves to the discipline in Cuerpo as to the solemnity of the present constitution and to the grave and fatherly reproofs or censures of a wise and learned Bishop so that what they wanted of the natural causes of obedience they were forced to supply by severity and rigour or rather every thing seems like rigour and severity where we have a mean or no opinion of the persons that command for every thing they enjoin hath the force and appearance of tyranny and usurpation and arbitrary government when the governours placed upon the levell with our selves do not look as if they had a natural right to challenge any duty or obedience from us The contrivers of this modell were very sensible of this disadvantage and therefore the better to reconcile the people to it they very wisely called their lay-neighbours in to come and take upon them a share of the administration the lay-elders were to rule the Parishes and to fill the consistories and the people which is without question a very fine sort of government were to be governed by themselves not considering that as lay-men neither are nor can be fit judges in ecclesiastical matters so in the general they do not understand sufficiently the nature of laws and the design of punishment they have not sufficiently considered the wise proportions and temperaments of mercy and justice they have not for the most part such a sense of humanity or such a comprehenfive prospect
when it hath had its utmost operation there will still be some dregs of the disease and some of the very medicine it self that was intended to cure it that will remain behind and so it is in law though the suit be ended yet the contending parties are not reconciled and the very going to law which is the remedy of strife does oftentimes beget a quarelsome and contentious temper and make men more troublesome to their neighbours for the future whether they get the better of the cause or no as losing gamesters play on out of hope to repair their losses and they that win so long as there is money stirring upon the board or an estate to answer the credit which they give are every whit as eager as the other out of hope that fortune will continue to be kind And as the Priesthood for their usefulness excell the courts of justice inasmuch as it is a much more noble and more worthy emploiment to create in men an obedient and charitable temper by the one of which they shall converse with the greater kindness and benevolence among one another and shall be ready at all times to hearken to truth and reason and to submit their cause to the umpirage of common interest and universal justice without respect to private ends or persons and by the other they are rendred more tame and tractable and more easie to be governed and in both respects contribute so much to the peace and happiness and safety of each other I say as this is an emploiment undoubtedly more excellent than that which is chiefly conversant about the cure of diseases and the decision of quarrels after the mutual hostilities are begun and hath a much greater recourse to force than to persuasion so it is likewise in the order of nature before it and in both respects it is that the Priesthood in all nations are not onely worthy of double honour but it is absolutely necessary to the ends of government that they should have it But yet I do not deny nay I have already expresly granted and affirmed it that it is a part of our business and duty to reconcile differences as well as to prevent them as it is on the other hand a part of the counsellours emploiment to prevent quarrels by deeds of settlement and by antecedent agreements and stipulations consented to by both parties in due form of law as well as to end them by bringing them to an issue and a verdict at the bar but still these two things remain unquestionably true First that the greatest part of the Divine's business is preventive and the greatest task of Council learned in the law is conversant not so much in the prevention of controversies as in their final issue and determination Secondly That as we prevent quarrels so we reconcile them too after another manner than the Lawyers do we persuade to peace among our selves and to obedience to the governours that are set over us by endeavouring to infuse such peaceable and charitable dispositions into men as shall not onely prevent or reconcile one quarrel or be a means of producing this or that act of obedience but shall be a lasting principle of action that shall run through our lives and in every particular instance that can be given shall naturally dispose us to act so as is most friendly to one another most dutifull with respect to our superiours and in both cases most for our own inward peace and rest for the quiet of the world and the happiness of mankind The Divine reconciles one quarrel so as by that principle upon which the reconciliation proceeds to prevent another The Lawyer prevents a quarrel so as to make men uneasie under the restraint and reconciles a difference after such a manner as to leave the embers of a lasting animosity and the seeds of a contentious discontented spirit raked up and glowing under the ashes of the cause The Divine saith doe this and you shall be happy doe it or we cannot help your being miserable for there are natural troubles and inconveniences annext to all unreasonable and unjust actions there is an almighty arm which you cannot resist that is over you and there is a vengeance expects you in the world to come which it is in vain for you to think of escaping upon any other condition than that of repentance and amendment The Law saith doe this or you shall be severely punished the law promises nothing neither indeed can it for the rewards of vertue are natural and owing to the actions themselves therefore if the action will reward it self it may but the law gives nothing but impunity to obedience and to disobedience proposes terrour And after all its sanctions which are founded in fear are not onely less persuasive because there is no argument to persuade to obedience to a positive law but fear because there is nothing to be got by submission but impunity or if any good consequence follow from it it is no thanks to the law but to the nature of the action whereas the Divine who proceeds upon the nature and tendency of actions does not onely work upon the fears of men but likewise upon their hopes and their desires but he hath also this advantage that the terrours which the law displays are onely such as belong to ouvert actions after due proof and process hath been made so that in many cases there may be an hope of escaping nay a moral impossibility that a man should be discovered and so the inclination to evil remains being cherished by an hope of impunity and concealment and although the outward act be in many particular instances restrained yet the inward principle of the mind is not altered all this while which cannot be done by any menace of the law but by shewing men whether they are discovered or not that vertue and obedience are always for their interest whenever they will consider all things impartially together And as the terrours of the law may be escaped which cannot be said of those of nature and religion which are unalterable and unavoidable so also as being but humane terrours they may in many cases be resisted and overcome by men and sometimes they are laid asleep by the connivence and partiality of men to one another but in the rewards and punishments whether of natural or divine laws the case is clean otherwise for so far as they proceed from the natural issues and tendencies of actions they have as necessary a dependence upon their emanative cause as the light hath upon the sun or the stream upon the fountain or heat and warmth upon a quantity of combustible matter already kindled and in an actual flame so that the causes or actions themselves being supposed there is no way to avoid the natural effects that are consequent upon them the rewards are certain the punishments inevitable vertue cannot be separated from the advantages that are linked to it by a necessity of nature
is more plain than that in religious Discourses whether in Prayer or Sermon nothing ought to be said after such a manner as to move laughter or contempt instead of exciting Devotion and serious attention but whether this end be more likely to be attained by an extempore or well-considered and premeditated Prayer let any man of common sense and understanding judge And though such rash and inconsiderate expressions may be well enough approved where they are uttered among people that are affected by noise rather than by sober and judicious expressions by a sound and wholesome Form of words yet it ought to be considered one would think how unbecoming such things are to the gravity of one that pretends to teach and instruct the World or to the Majesty of that Person whose Character he sustains what scandal it gives to understanding men and what advantages to the profane and lastly how unsuitable it is to the design of Religion which is to make men happy by creating in them a calm and sedate temper not so much to move their Passions as to inform their Judgments and to prepare them for Happiness by wisedom and instruction But if there be any who by the strength of natural parts by the quickness of their fancie or the volubility of their tongues by long custom or acquired habits by art and study by ringing the changes and by shuffling the same expressions at several times into a several order and method shall from thence seem either to themselves or others to be possessed of this Gift of Prayer yet they are in truth and reallity very much mistaken and it will appear they are so in that they generally use these whether talents or acquirements or artifices and devices of theirs rather in a way of ostentation than use by spinning out their Devotions to an unusual length and by endeavouring to captivate the ears and hearts of inconsiderate people by that much speaking which our Saviviour condemns Thus it appears plainly that a sober and well-considered Form of Prayer is a manifest advantage both to the Speaker and the Hearer and to the latter it is an advantage in a respect which I have not yet mentioned If I pray in an unknown tongue saith the Apostle my spirit prayeth but my understanding is unfruitfull 1 Cor. c. 14. v. 14. And again v. 16. how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen From whence it follows plainly that in this age especially when the miraculous effusions of the Spirit are in a manner wholly ceased those Prayers are the best to which we are best prepared to say Amen but those are manifestly Forms of Prayer because in those we goe along with the Minister himself nay we understand beforehand what it is he is about to ask and so are the better prepared to joyn withhim and to say Amen heartily devoutly and preparedly to all his Petitions And the same Chapter will likewise furnish us with another argument against these extempore Effusions when they are truly and properly and not onely pretendedly so which is but to put a cheat upon the People namely that they are subject either to the heats of Enthusiasm on the one hand or to the coldness of Non plus and Drawling on the other both of which expose Religion to contempt in the opinion or at least in the practice of those whose design and interest it is to make it contemptible and cheap and serves to alienate the affections of much wiser men than ever they are like to gain over to themselves If the whole Church be come together to speak with Tongues and there come in those that are unlearned and Vnbelievers will they not say that ye are mad and if the same or a like advantage may and will be taken from the indiseretion of every extempore Pretender there is the same reason why he should lay by his pretences and give way to a sound and sober Form of words The truth is a premeditated and an extempore Prayer have each of them their inconveniences the latter cannot be without them and the first if it be not done by â— man of some judgment and experience he does usually endeavour onely to shew his parts as if his design were to recommend himself to the good opinion of God Almighty for a man of Eloquence and Wit the premeditated man does oftentimes talk so fulsomely as if his design â—ere to cajole and cokes the great God of Heaven and Earth while the man of gifts and graces as â—e thinks himself does by ridiculous or rash expressions by mimical gestures and affected alterations of his voice by speaking sometimes so high as if he would prevail with him by clamor and sometimes so low as if he had a secret to communicate to his Maker openly affront and abuse him to his face and in the face of a numerous Assembly Bâ—t both these Inconveniences are happily avoided by the wise provision which the Church has made If then the use of Forms of Prayer in the publick Assemblies of Christians be not onely lawfull in it self and justified by the practice of all ages before the Reformation but also manifestly tending to Edification and freed from very many and very great inconveniences to which extempore Addresses are exposed and therefore necessary to be allow'd And if though Forms of Prayer be necessary in the general yet this or that particular Form be not otherwise the Liturgy of all Churches and all Ages must be exactly the same Lastly If no Formulary of Divine Service can be introduced into the common use and practice of the Church but by the publick Sanction whether sacred or civil or both then we have here a plain instance of a lawfull humane Imposition in indifferent matters for though a Form of Prayer be necessary yet this or that Form is not from whence it follows beyond all possibility of contradiction that an humane Imposition in indifferent matters or a Determination of those indifferent things by the authority of men to one part of the indifference is not in it self unlawfull and whatsoever may be lawfully commanded is of necessity to be obey'd unless we will renounce all obedience whatsoever However thus much will certainly be granted by the most avow'd Assertors of the Separation that we have every one of us a right and power of determining our selves in those indifferent matters for otherwise the nature of their indifference is destroy'd and yet if thus much be but allow'd they will find themselves driven to an absolute necessity either to contradict themseves and to affirm contradictions in a breath to say that the same things are and are not indifferent at the same time or else they must bid adiew to their beloved Cause and give submission to the Authority of the Church For whatever natural Liberty men have in themselves when once they become members of a Society they are supposed to give it up to the legislative or governing power
of that Society so far as is necessary to the peace and quiet of it for otherwise a Society and no Society would be exactly the same that is every man would still remain his own Master and at liberty to doe as much as ever he could before For example in that which Mr. Hobbs is pleased to call the State of Nature when a man is not a member of a Body politick but a distinct and perfectly independent person by himself he is naturally invested with a right and power of defending his person or his possession by force of Arms he may lawfully revenge his own injuries and he is the onely Judge when he is wronged or injur'd because without all this power he cannot live in the World or continue in that Being which God and Nature have given him But if having listed themselves by mutual covenant and agreement into a Body politick or Commonwealth for the mutual defence and preservation of every particular person and of the whole Society men shall notwithstanding after this assume the same liberty to themselves of personal Revenges and of being their own Judges in controverted cases without referring themselves to the decision of the Law which is the civil Umpire betwixt man and man it is manifest this Society cannot be of long continuance or rather so long as this Liberty is taken it can never be a Society properly so called from whence it follows plainly that it is necessary if men will be members of a Society that they give up this private power into the hands of the publick If therefore the Church be a Society truly and properly so called if it be that mystical Body of which Christ is the Head if the members of this Body cannot be knit and well compacted together without external rules of discipline and order in which the very nature of a Society consists if the publick Orders of the Church and every man's prescribing rules to himself be inconsistent together and if the observing no rule or method at all either in Divine Worship or civil conversation be rather like a man in Bedlam than a Denison of a sober Corporation if charity good-will and love if mutual helpfulness and reciprocal usefulness to one another if peace with God and peace with men and peace within our selves be the great design and business of the Christian life if a man cannot be at peace with God while he is at enmity with his neighbour if a man can neither love nor fear nor know nor worship God aright at the same time when his thoughts are taken up and filled with envy uncharitableness detraction and revenge if no man can be happy in himself when he is displeas'd and angry with other men if the controversies raised about matters confessedly indifferent have been when and where-ever they have happened a perpetual bane and disquiet to the Church if they alwaies heighten mens Passions against and alienate their affections from one another if they are alwaies attended with a disturbance of the publick peace and have de facto proceeded to the utter subversion both of Church and State if all these Animosities and Contensions would immediately cease by a quiet and dutifull submission to the Authority of the Church if by giving up this Power the Church as a Body politick or Society of men is actually dissolved a Society or Aggregate of several persons being no otherwise one than as they submit to the same Laws and are governed by the same external Rules of discipline and obedience if Place and Time notwithstanding they be indifferent in themselves as to this or that particular determination yet is it necessary in the general that they should be determined otherwise there can be no publick Worship of God lastly when men are met together in a religious Assembly if every man shall follow his own particular fancie if almost every single person shall be seen in a different posture and if this be more like to make men look upon one another than to attend to the Minister or to mind themselves if it be more like to excite laughter than devotion if it be a natural obstruction to the solemnity and seriousness of religious Worship if done by chance it be a sign of too great negligence and remisness and if done on set purpose it be a sign of conceitedness and spiritual pride while every man prefers his own way and despises that of another if it be a ground of censure and may be a cause of uncharitableness and by degrees of separation then is it plain upon all these accounts which I have mentioned because it would be better if it were so and because it is necessary that it should be so because the Church can neither preserve it self in reputation nor so much as in being because it is for its undoubted and its perpetual interest and because it is necessary to its preservation that it should be invested with an Authority of adjusting the most indifferent circumstances of Divine Worship without which the blessed ends of Unity and Peace can never be obtained I say it is plain from all this that the Church is actually invested with this Power and that Ecclesiastical Constitutions may for the same reason determine indifferent matters for which the Civil forbid Adultery and Murther namely because it is necessary to the publick Peace which reason if it be not sufficient the Civil Laws do all of them become immediately null and void as being founded upon no other basis but the consideration of the publick good but if it be a solid and substantial reason I would fain know if any of the Dissenters be at leisure to inform me why it may not equally extend to defend the necessity and consequently justice of Ecclesiastical whether Laws or Censures Especially if we consider that as the case of the Christian world now stands the same persons with the same interests prejudices and passions are members both of the Civil and Ecclesiastical State so that it is as impossible there should be a disturbance in the one in which the other shall be unconcerned as that the same man should be divided from himself and it is every whit as clear that either it is not lawfull to use all necessary means for the preservation of the Civil Peace or it is lawfull for the Church to concern her self in the determination of indifferent matters which Determinations and Constitutions of hers may be lawfully confirmed and ratified by the State If men could differ without falling-out something might be pretended in behalf of an innocent though unbecoming Liberty but since the greatest feuds and animosities do sometimes take their rise from the smallest beginnings since the religious differences are of all others the greatest and the most fatal to the publick Peace since there is nothing so infinitely scrupulous as an unreasonably tender Conscience and since there is no pretence so inconsiderable from whence either indigent or ambitious men will not take
impossible that there should because of necessity the several manners customes and other circumstances of several Nations will introduce a diversity of external Formalitie into Religious Worship which may be done without any breach of Charity or Friendship among men because there is no interest to be served by promoting Feuds and Animosities between them and it will be all one to the peace and happiness of this Kingdome what rites or usages soever the Greek or Armenian Churches shall embrace We do not much trouble our heads though by reason of their near Neighbourhood we have some reason to do it about the French saying Mass or adoring Reliques or Images or praying for Dead or worshipping the Host Nay you shall hardly ever see a man in a passion when he hears the Tragicall stories of those horrible persecutions against the professours of the Reformed Religion but though he may relieve and pity them so far as a small temporary Contribution will go yet in truth and reality he is not much concerned whereas at home we can make a shift to fall out about much smaller matters the reason is because we are not embarked in the same bottom with them and so being able to do neither good nor hurt by being angry or displeas'd we scarce ever trouble our selves But at home the pretences of Religion and Liberty which are always stirring when ever there is any prospect of publique Disorders likely to ensue upon them will never fail to excite the ambitious the discontented and the needy to embroyle the State out of principles either of Interest or Revenge while the passions of men that dayly converse together and are engaged by interest or prejudice or duty in the respective parties do but serve to blow the cole and improve the sparks of Animosity into a flame of War The consequence of all which is That there may be differences in the universal Church consisting of many Kingdomes and Provinces without dissention and that all that whatever it is which is requisite to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace may be consistent enough with differences in smaller matters but that in the same Kingdome or Dominion this can never be But secondly By the Church we may understand a National Congregation of Christian People divided into many partitions or particular assemblies united together by an unity of Faith and Discipline and Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and this is that which I affirm to be necessary in every Kingdome or State that would avoid all occasions of publique Tumults and Disorders and would be as happy either as themselves can wish or as Christianity designs to make them And therefore this is that unity which is by every Good Christian good Citizen or good Subject above all things which this world can afford the most earnestly to be desired for the obtaining of which he is to submit to every thing that shall be required of him and he is to abstain from every thing which is forbidden him if all things considered it may lawfully be done or avoided Thirdly In compliance with those of the Congregationall way I am content to allow a third sense of the word Church to be a particular and independent Congregation governed by Laws and measures of its own and acknowledging no Jurisdiction Forreign to it self and this is a Form of Church Government which in a Christian Kingdome or Common-wealth I affirm to be naturally unlawfull And here there are two cases to be considered First Either the whole body of the People is divided into such particular and independent Congregations or there is a nationall Establishment from which these particular Congregations have separated themselves The first of these is Babel in Effigie the very Emblem and Landskip of Confusion subject to inconveniences that cannot be thought of till they are felt and capable of such infinite sub-divisions as will at length reduce the comely Form of Government by so many particular interests and factions into a State of publick Hostility and Rapine for the reason why men separate from one another is always out of some reall or some pretended dislike which dislikes by actuall separation are so far from being composed that they are manifestly improved and heightned by it and from hence arise so many several Interests as there are Sects or denominations of Parties in a Common-wealth For it is natural to all men to desire to gain Proselytes to their own Opinion for men to love themselves and those of their own way and to think of other men who are not enroll'd in the same list with themselves if not with a reall hatred yet with a less esteem and a comparative Aversation which whenever a Ball of Interest is thrown between them will be improved into all the sad effects of the most desperate Malice and Revenge But here to make all sure as I go along I must repeat again That by Indâ—â—endent Congregations I mean such as own no Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction externall to themselves from whence it is easie to perceive that every such Congregation may be a new Sect and Party by it self as it was in a manner in the late Times when the Sects were spawned in such increadible abundance that the Alphabet began to complain of want of Letters to furnish so many different and disagreeing Parties with names Neither is it to be supposed that so many several Factions notwithstanding their differences in matters of Religion shall yet conspire in an uniform Obedience to the Civil Power because to be uppermost is that which they all desire and since the very same persons are members of the Commonwealth and of a particular Sect or Party it is ridiculous to hope that the State can ever be quiet till all these parties can agree together to be of the same mind which is to make them cease to be what they are In the United Provinces where the greatest Liberty is given and taken of any other Territory in the Christian World the peace of the publick could not be secured if it were not for the Overballance of the Calviâ—isticall Party above the rest for the Calvinists as Sir Willian Temple in his Observations upon the United Provinces takes notice p. 204. make up the body of the People and are possessed of all the publick Churches in the Dominions of the State as well as of the onely Ministers or Pastours who are maintained by the publick who have no other Salaries than what they receive from the State upon whom they wholly depend and for that reason they will be sure to preach obedience and submission to the People But yet notwithstanding this so great has the power and interest of the Louvestane or Arminian Party alwaies been that it has been the occasion of great revolutions among them and as it was probably one of the main causes of their so sudden fall from the height of envy into the lowest region of pity and despair within the compass of a very few years
so it is to be feared that in not many more the animosities between a Calvinist and whoever differs from him being irreconcileable and everlasting it will prâ—ve the ruin of that once powerfull but now declining State Neither was there any thing in the late unhappy times next to the Title of an incomparable Prince to whom the Sceptre of these Kingdoms did of right belong and the Affections of a loyal Party which all the republican Cruelties were not able to extinguish that contributed so much to put a period to the Usurpation which was never establish'd upon any certain bottom as the bandying of the several Factions against one another which made it both necessary for the Usurpers to support their power by the Sword and that Sword it self not being all of it of the same metal and the Army that was to wield it being it self canton'd into Sects and Factions they began at length not to understand one anothers language but were forced to leave working any longer and to desist from building that Babel of Religion cemented with bloud instead of mortar which is inconsistent with the quiet of the Earth and by which men in vain expect to climbe to Heaven It is a prodigious thing for a man to consider what irreconcileable feuds the smallest differences in Religion have created and still the smaller those differences are the higher usually are those animosities that are produced by them as if it were the nature and genius of mankind to make up in passion what they want in reason as the Turks and Persians though agreeing in all other parts of the Maâ—ometan Superstition yet about a very small Punctilio they are at mortal jars with one another and being so near neighbours as they are they never want an opportunity of expressing their resentments by the frequent and bloudy Wars betwixt those two formidable Empires The Calvinists pursue the Lutherans and Arminians who on their own parts are not wanting to retaliate the kindness with every whit as great if not greater hatred than those who do toto coelo errare the Popish I mean the Mahometan and the Pagan World nay so apt are men to fall out with one another that the most inconsiderable niceties of difference that can be conceived when they are used as marks of distinction when men shall obstinately persist in such discriminations and when they shall place an opinion or affectation in them will produce in them a dislike and aversation for one another and let the difference be never so small yet it will alwaies be true to the World's end that Birds of a feather will flock together so many distinctions as there are bating those distinctions which Trade and Functions and the Necessities of humane life have made for the mutual support and maintenance of each other so many several Parties and Factions you shall have in that Common-wealth or Kingdom where those distinctions are found Though in this case it will alwaies happen that the smaller Fishes will associate and unite together against the Leviathan or prevailing Party that overballances the rest but when that King of the Waters is destroy'd they will then begin to prey upon one another and contend which of them shall ingross the Dominion of the Seas which is the case of all the Republican Factions against the Church of England at this day though as well reason as former sad experience may instruct us when they have obtained their end if ever they do obtain it which God forbid what miserable work they will make of it among themselves It is to be confess'd indeed that there are abroad very great heats and contentions to be found which are not of such dangerous consequence to the publick Peace such as are those feuds which will never be extinguish'd betwixt the Seculars and the Regulars and betwixt the regular Fraternities with one another and I believe there are but very few monastick Societies will be found that are at peace within themselves of which and of the causes of it which I have well considered I could say more if it would not be a digression but whether it be that common obedience which they pay their Holy Father the Pope which keeps them in somewhat better order or that being men of a single life not encumbred with any secular interest or concern their animosities cannot so easily embroile the State as those who have a greater interest in it and who may with a better countenance pursue secular designs than they can doe or whether it be that the Laiety think it not worth their while any further than it is matter of common entertainment and discourse to take any part in the quarrels of Beadesmen and of Beggars or whether it be that their contentions are not of such a popular nature as to have an influence upon any but themselves who make them or that the perpetual austerities of their respective rules which are a constant emploiment to them hinder them from being capable of prosecuting any dangerous design with that address and diligence which is requisite to its success or that all the heat of these contentions is spent by men that know better how to use their tongues than swords in complaints to the Pope and in writing against and censuring one another or lastly whether it be that their way of life in the retirement of their cloysters and in the little formalitie of their cells and convents renders them unexperienc'd in affairs listless and unactive in business and unfit to doe any great good or mischief in the World or whatever the true reason be there is no question but they are found by long experience by giving an example of poverty and contentment and by the reputation of their sanctity and holyness of life to be rather an advantage than detriment to the places where they are suffered and they make sufficient amends for their intestine divisions by their being united together in the Papal Interest and in the support of the Romish Tyranny over the Consciences of men But let the reason be what it will it is certain that no reason can justifie the lawfullness of separate and independent Congregations in a Christian Commonwealth or Kingdome which are in their own nature and have been found so by experience to be so destructive to the welfare and happiness of the World which are so big with inconveniences not to be foreseen till they are felt which are surrounded on every side with infinite and unspeakable dangers to which no possible remedy can be apply'd but by the removal of their necessary cause and by destroying the Independencie it self that I make no scruple to pronounce it as a self-evident Maxim that an aggregate of separate and disunited Congregations unaccountable to one another or to any superior temporal Head invested with a power of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Censure is contrary to the Law of Nature destructive of the Peace of the World and of the design of Christianity
it self which is to engage men in closer obligations of unity and friendship with one another and therefore ought not to be tolerated in a Christian State no more than Atheism or Infidelity themselves it being the extremity of Non-sense and religious Folly to allow that Charity Good-will and Peace are the indispensable duties of a Christian nay the characteristick indications of his being Christ's Disciple that God is Love and that whosoever loveth not his brother whom he hath seen cannot possibly love God whom be hath not seen and yet that that Form of Church Government is I will not say of divine Institution but of divine Permission which is in its very nature and essential constitution so exactly fitted to bring the World into Confusion and Disorder And so I have done with the first Case which supposes the whole Body of a People to be parcell'd out into many distinct and independent Congregations Give me leave now to speak a very little to the second which presumes onely a Separation of one or more Congregations from the Body of the National Church setting up a new Authority of its own and disowning the Jurisdiction of the publick which second Case differs onely in proportion from the first and will of necessity labour with all those ill consequences in its degree and measure with which the first is incumbred and it being much easier for small things to encrease than to begin the consequences at the long run will be exactly the same if the Government by a wise temperament of Care and Courage do not put a timely stop to the progress of such ill boding beginnings Into such separate Assemblies as these all the ill humorâ— of the Body politick will naturally flow thither the unfortunate the discontented the covetous and the ambitious will betake themselves to seek revenge against reall or imaginary wrongs to repair the decaies and ruines of a broken fortune to satisfie the craving circumstances of poverty and want and to fill up the wide capacity of immodest unreasonable and unjust desires at the expence of the publick welfare security and quiet Neither are such Conventicles as these dangerous onely to the Civil Peace by being the natural causes of embroilment and disturbance the very sinks and common-shores into which all bad humors disembogue themselves and find a welcome entertainment while the simplicity of some suffers it self under the specious pretences of an extraordinary zeal to be misled and carry'd away captive by the designing Hypocrisie of others but which is still worse they have a no less pleasing aspect upon Religion it self which either by the infinite pretences to greater purity a most absurd and foolish cause of Separation which knows no Law and will admit no bounds they refine so long till they have utterly lost it or by a most impious and unreasonable claim to I know not what Gospel Liberty they get at last to be Libertines indeed and are placed as far above the reach of Ordinances as those Ordinances themselves by their design and use for the preservation of Love and Unity in the Church by their Divine institution and appointment and by the supernatural Grace which is exhibited and convey'd by a due and worthy participation of them are plac'd above the blasphemous contempt of such profane and dissolute Wâ—etches But I would by no means be so far misunderstood as if I were so uncharitable as to think that all or so much as the greatest part of those that separate doe it out of any bad design for I am not onely morally certain of the contrary as to the much greater number of the People but as to the Pastors themselves if that be any credit for them I dare be confident in very many instances that the blind lead the blind and that they are not sensible of those dismal inconveniences to which their Separation is naturally exposed but in what I have just now said I chiefly reflect upon the sad experience of former times which is sufficient to convince us what the genuine tendencie of these new models is and I do no more question that the same causes if suffered to operate with the same freedom will have the same effect than I do whether humane nature and humane passions be the same now that they were twenty or thirty years ago which Consideration if all well-meaning but misguided Christians would seriously lay to heart I cannot doubt but it would soon have a very wonderfull effect upon the Peace and Settlement of these distracted Kingdoms by persuading all that heartily wish the Prosperity of Sion and pray for the Peace of this our spiritual Jerusalem to leave their separate Assemblies and betake themselves into the bosom of the Church which cannot behold so much goodness and sincerity so miserably misled and gon astray without all the concern that is natural to a distressed forsaken Mother and stands alwaies ready with her arms wide open and with an entreating voice and mind to receive them into her most tender and passionate embraces Some sort of Unity as to external Discipline is necessary to the consistence even of those lesser bodies nay the Quakers themselves who are much the most exorbitant of all Parties to be found among us yet they differ from others and agree with one another in nothing more than in a certain Formality peculiar to themselves And how much more desirable would it be that all Parties laying aside their respective heats and animosities which under such diversity of outward forms they so dangerously foment and carry on against each other should unite together under one common rule in such a blessed band of Peace and Love as would remove all our Jealousies and prevent all our Fears and make every man in the Streets in an unknown Face to meet his Guide his Companion and his own familiar Friend This is my first Answer to the Objection taken from the pretence of a Tender Conscience That an Uniformity of one sort or other is of absolute necessity to the peace of the Church which Uniformity since it cannot be obtained unless men could all jump into the same mind of themselves and continue in it when they had done it follows unavoidably that there is and must always be in the Church a standing Authority from whence the Sanctions of Discipline and Order shall receive their obligation I come now to give a more particular Answer to the Objection proposed and in that I shall consider in the general what the terms of this Uniformity must be or rather what kind of terms they are to which all Christian People are obliged to submit It must be granted therefore That though an Uniformity in Religious Worship be that which is above all things in this World the most passionately to be desired yet this being only in order to that great End to which all our endeavours and counsels ought to be directed the Eternal happiness and salvation of our Souls no terms of Uniformity ought
than by an uniform and regular Discipline of the Church then is it abundantly manifest that such â—eparate Congregations as tending plainly to the disturbance of the World are unlawfull that they may and that they ought to be suppressed and that all the Favourers and Abettors of such unlawfull Assemblies are Promoters Aiders Comforters and Assisters of Rebellion and Disobedience both against God and Man Neither is it at all material in this case that many of those who frequent these separate Assemblies nay to give them their due the infinitely greatest part of them are not conscious to themselves of any such bad Design but they doe it onely out of a religious prejudice which they have conceived against the Establishment of the Church of England and out of an opinion which they have of the greater Sanctity of their Teachers and Purity of those Ordinances of which they are made partakers by their ministration out of a real and an hearty zeal for God although that zeal be not accordâ—ng to knowledge yet we are not to consider so much what it is they design as what the natural tendencie of all Separation is which because by experience it is found to bring so great and so horrid inconveniences and mischiefs upon the World unless it be timely restrained it may and it must of necessity have very bad effects and this is enough to make men guilty of the consequences of their Separation though at first they did not intend them He that commits a fault through want of consideration is not altogether so guilty as he that knowing it to be a fault does yet notwithstanding commit it on set purpose but yet he is guilty in his proportion and degree as well as the other because it was his duty to consider better and still the more easie it is too for a man to inform himself and what is or can be more manifest than the Prejudice arising from mens embodying themselves into particular and independent Societies So much the greater is the guilt arising from the want of due heed and consideration because a very little attention would have served the turne when there is so much reason in the thing and so much experience to improve that reason into all the certainty of demonstration But secondly It will be said That a bare difference in the externals of Religion in matters of meer Discipline and Ceremonie will not produce those bad effects that are pretended and I wish with all my heart that there were as much truth in this Exception as they that make it would have it seem to have but by Experience which is the great Judge in this Controversie to which we must apply our selves for the discovery of the truth the contrary does but too manifestly appear For what is it that has been the true source and fountain of all our pablick Calamities that has made so dreadfull and so terrible Convulsions both in Church and State but an over-heated zeal against Ceremonies and publick Order which sort of zeal if it be tolerated the strength and beauty of the Church is lost by every man's pursuing fancies of his own or siding with a new modell of a particular Party instead of joining in the regular and uniform Worship of the publick which is at once an instance of our Obedience to the Divine and Humane Laws and a certain expedient of Unity and Peace with one another but if this zeal instead of being tolerated shall be restrained and opposed then it immediately complains of Persecution and would have its sufferings thought as meritorious for raising unreasonable insatiable and eternal Scruples as if the Cause of Christianity it self were at stake as if it were the being of a God or the immortality of the Souls of men that were deny'd by us and asserted onely by the Dissenters from the publick Order and Rule So that either way the inconvenience is in a manner equal a Toleration has a manifest tendencie to the subversion of the Government both in Church and State and in that there is no question to be made but it will certainly end when once it has been suffered to have its full scope and swinge and yet a vigorous Prosecution of the Laws against the Disturbers of the Peace is branded with the odious name of Persecution and they that suffer by it for being Incendiaries are termed Saints and because it is natural for a distressed Cause to find a friendship and pity from the common People whether it be reasonable or no Suffering being a very sensible and a very affecting thing when the Causes of those Sufferings are not so plain and obvious to every common understanding especially when blinded by prejudice or concern for the persons of those that suffer from hence it comes to pass that a just and necessary Prosecution of the Laws if it be not managed with abundance of temper and prudence so as it may appear it is not done out of hatred to a Party but out of a real tenderness to the common good may sometimes prove the occasion of great and fatal disorders in a State and may in its conâ—equence be attended with all those confusions to which a boundless Toleration is exposed This was the great reason of the revolt of the Vnited Provinces from under the Spanish Yoak who if they had been treated with less severity might probably by gentler methods have been reduced to Obedience but by the Cruelty of the Spanish Governours and Souldiery who pursued them especially under the Government of the Duke D'Alva with all the symptoms of the most mortal hatred they were so far alienated in their affections from a Government that used them so ill they had such a dread of those unheard of Cruelties and such a deserved aversation for that Religion that delights to propagate it self by Bloud that being assisted by the Hugonots from France whose interest it was to stand by the Reformation and by Supplies from England which was glad at that time to find an opportunity to reduce the Spanish greatness to a juster ballance with the rest of the European Princes they were at length perfectly severed from the body of the Spanish Empire and united in a common Alliance among themselves for the mutual support and main tenance of each other which though it gave beginning to the most powerfull Republick that has ever appeared since the Roman yet as a Republick in its nature and constitution is more exposed to the ambition or animositie of bad men than a Kingdom or Monarchie is or can well be so in the midst of its greatness it alwaies carried in its bowells the undoubted symptoms and causes of its ruine which it is to be feared what with the Factions at home and the daily encreasing Power of its enemies from abroad is not far off at this time But yet though Cruelty be that for which all mankind but they that exercise it upon others have a just and mortal aversation yet a
which is best preserved and most edifyingly delivered to the common people as nigh as may be in the very words which it may be supposed the divine Pen-men themselves had they been to interpret their own books into English or any other Modern language would have used so there are also matters of Faith and Practice The first of which as containing mysteries above humane comprehension ought to be delivered as exactly as is possible in the very words of the inspired Writers to doe otherwise being either to pretend to explain those things which cannot be explained or to make mysteries of our own instead of delivering those of God and Religion And then as to the rules of life and practice they can never appear in a more Authoritative or becoming garb than in that which God himself hath put them neither can the native simplicity and beauty of the Gospel that peaceable and gentle temper which it breathes from it self and is apt to inspire into all that converse with it be any way so advantageously and so profitably represented to the world as by every man's perusing the Gospels and Epistles for himself by reading the very Sermons of our Saviour himself and the advices of his immediate followers and Apostles in those very words or their equivalents in which they were delivered Ninthly Though it cannot be deny'd when we have so many and so sad experiences to convince us of the truth of it that the reading of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue is attended with many inconveniences from the perversness the design or the ignorance of men yet those inconveniences neither are nor can be so great as that they ought to stand in any degree of competition with the salvation of the souls of men which are of infinitely more price and value than any other consideration whatsoever Tenthly These inconveniences are not so great as those to which not only particular persons but Religion it self is exposed by the contrary extreme that is by keeping the Bible lockt up in an unknown language which is in it self and has been found by experience in the Romish Church to have been the cause of all those monstrous Idolatries and Superstitions all those absurd Fables and foolish Traditions with which that communion is at this day polluted and which instead of being so zealously practised and so eagerly pursued after by the Votaries of that way would by the light of Scripture if they were to take their measures from thence be sufficiently detected and proportionably abhorred which is not only manifest from the repugnancy of the Scripture it self to such abominable trumperies and wicked impositions upon the belief or practice of men but also from the separation of the reformed Churches from that of Rome which proceeds altogether upon Scriptural measures and cannot be justified upon any other pretence and still in all ages ever since the corruption of Christianity by the Romish artifices from its first simplicity into a fardle of absurdities and innovations those gainfull impieties have been proportionably detected as there was more or less of Evangelical light and truth shining forth in the world Eleventhly There never can any so great inconvenience happen by a promiscuous use of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongues which may not in a great measure if not altogether be remedy'd by the strict and impartial severity of wholesome Laws and where Laws do not govern the outward practices of men though they have nothing to doe with private opinions while they remain such and do not walk abroad there the government must of necessity be dissolved and all the banks of order and society must give place to a deluge of Enthusiasm and Fanatique madness Twelfthly There can no mischief or inconvenience follow upon a publique allowance of reading the scriptures in the vulgar tongues if there be but such restraints laid upon the practices and opinions of men as are of absolute necessity to the peace and security of every Commonwealth and if thus much may not be allowed if every man shall be permitted not onely to reade the Scriptures but to interpret them as he pleases and to practise in consequence of his interpretation so prodigious are the follies so strong the prejudices so rash and inconsiderate the zeal so wicked and detestable the designs of abundance of men that if this be the true English of Gospel-liberty if this be that liberty which Christ came to purchase for us and which he hath entailed upon every follower or disciple of his then his followers though agreeing in this That they all acknowledge him for their head and leader will yet be at as great strife and variance among themselves nay and perhaps at greater too than if they had been destitute of such a common guide who by such an ungovernable unbounded liberty of interpretation speaking no certain sense but accommodating himself in all things to the follies prejudices and designs of ignorant or wicked men will instead of being the Prince of Peace and the healer of all breaches and animosities among us prove the certain and infallible cause of infinite misery and distraction to the world FINIS The Second EXERCITATION Concerning the true Pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton or four lettered Name of God among the Jews As also concerning the Pythagorick Tetractys and other Philological matters that have a connexion with it A Ben Ezra in the Introduction to his Paraphrase upon the Book of Esther tells us the Samaritanes were used to worship Asima insinuating thereby that they were Idolaters though this indeed be but a Rabbinical Equivocation and is rather a confession in behalf of those whom he would pretend to accuse that they were Worshippers of the true and onely God that made Heaven and Earth and all that therein is For what is Asima it is either At h shema that is Hashem the name of God among the Jews or it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him whose name cannot be expressed in its true sound and pronunciation and so is the same with the shem hameporash or if it be not an Equivocation it is a downright Falsehood for it was not the men of Cuth as the Jews call the Samaritanes but those of Hamath that worshipped Ashima but the Cuthites Idol was Negal 2 Kings 17. 30. and though all the several Nations there mentioned verse 31. may in some sense be comprehended under the general name of Samaritanes as being all transplanted by Salmanasser into that Country which from Shomron the Metropolis was usually called Samaria yet it is manifest that it was but a very small part of them that worshipped this Idol Ashima and therefore Aben Ezra cannot free himself from the imputation either of an Equivocator or a false Accuser There is also a certain Hebrew Gentleman the Authour of a Book called Toledoth Jeshu or the Book of the Generations of Jesus who is so kind to our Saviour as to acknowledge that he was acquainted with the sed
least strengthen what former proof hath been given if it may not pretend to be a new proof by it self Secondly If we should suppose that the Jews had generally that familiar knowledge of and acquaintance with the law which is denied what extreme madness and folly would it have been in this case for them to relapse to the Idolatries and Superstitions of the Heathen World that is to run out of the light of noon into the darkness of midnight to leave a Religion which they perfectly understood and were not capable to be abused by the craft and subtilty of designing Priests to embrace that where all was kept secret and where they were in perpetual danger of being imposed upon by the designs and artifices of those whose trade and livelihood depended wholly upon the credulity and ignorance of the people or would they not rather have said to any that should have endeavoured to perswade them to make so foolish and so unaccountable an exchange of their Religion as our Saviour said to the Samaritane Woman Tou know not what you worship we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews So that besides the direct proof of this assertion which this consideration will afford here is also a Demonstratio per absurdum and the manifest inconvenience of the contrary opinion is enough to overthrow it Seventhly For this reason the law is called the Covenant of Levi Malach. 2. 4. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you that my covenant might be with Levi saith the Lord of Hosts Not but that the Covenant was made in common with the whole people of Israel but it is called the Covenant with Levi because as it follows v. 7. The Priest's lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts And then v. 8. to show how easie it was for them who had the entire possession of the law to themselves and who were the Oracles upon whom the people depended to impose upon them and abuse them at their pleasure it is added But ye are departed out of the way ye have caused many to stumble at the law ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi. Eighthly and lastly It is to be considered that in all the most ancient times of the Jewish Church the sacred Volume consisted wholly of Consonants and that the Vowels were supply'd without the help of any visible Characters by the skill or traditionary usage of the Priests among whom it was preserved that it had no Vowels visibly and determinately set down is evident from the Genius of all the Eastern languages to all of which this defect did anciently belong and from the Writings of all the Rabbinical Doctors whether Ancient or Modern who always have and still do continue to this day to write down only the Consonants or unsounding Letters leaving the Vowels to be supplied by the skill or conjecture of their â—â—ders and lastly from all the ancient MSS. of the Hebrew Bible it self of which Isaac Vossius who had seen Two thousand an incredible number affirms that he never saw any ancienter than Six hundred years which had the Masorethical Vowels and Accents annexed to it Now it being clear and evident to those who understand any thing of these matters from the nature of the thing it self and from the experience of those differences which are to be found by comparing the several Translations which have been made out of the Original Hebrew with one another by collating the seventy and the Chalday Paraphrasts and the fragments of Symmachus Aquila and Theodotion the Vulgar Latin and the ancient Medrashes or Jewish Expositions and Paraphrases together somewhat of which hath been already attempted by Capellus but yet so as that without any detraction from that incomparable work there is still an infinite field remaining for the industry of others to exercise it self I say it being evident from all this that the same Consonants are capable of and have been actually pointed with different Vowels which different Vowels shall constitute different words by themselves and shall by the change of one or more such words make a different sense to arise in a sentence taken together according to the several possibilities of variation in the same clause or sentence it is manifest that every new way of pointing is in effect a new Comment or Paraphrase upon the Text in which this variation is made But besides this there is also another sort of variation to be considered to which the Scriptures of the Old Testament are easily and have been actually exposed either by the mistakes or by the wilfull and industrious fault of the Transcribers and that is by the likeness of Consonants either as to the sound or figure either in the Old Samaritane or in the â—esent Assyrian Character such as are the changes of â— â—aleth a Resh and a Lamed by reason of likeness in figure or of an Hajin and an Aleph being both gutturals for the similitude of sound into one another of which sort of aâ—terations there are an incredible number of instances to be found by comparing the several Translations with one another to say nothing of that addition which might be made to these by a comparison of all those M SS which are extant at this day nor to take notice of the Keri and the Ketib of the Masoreth it self or of the various readings of Ben Asher and Ben Nephthali that is to say of the Eastern and Western Jews Now whoever shall consider these two causes of different reading or different interpretation and shall withall suppose the ancient Jews to have been every one of them obliged to transcribe an entire Copy of the Law for himself and to have read it without any Points and Vowels and lastly shall compare this with the mistakes to which men are subject the wofull ignorance and want of sense to which the common crowd of all Nations is usually exposed and much more the Jews who are by nature a stupid melancholly and superstitious sort of men and with the conceits and prejudices the love of novelty the natural itch of being thought wiser than their teachers and the wicked ambition which in all ages and nations possesses many mens breasts of overthrowing and unsetling the present establishment of things of disobeying their superiours of gathering Churches or Congregations as the Modern phrase is that is of siding into Factions and Parties and of disturbing the publique peace and quiet upon religious pretences and then let him tell me whether it were safe after all this to intrust every private person to transcribe the Law or Prophets or to point it for himself that is in effect to make all the alterations in Religion which either ignorance carelesness or design can introduce nay whether it would not have been impossible in so great variety of reading and interpretation as this would have unavoidably occasioned but
that the Jewish Nation must have been canton'd and divided into as many Sects as there were different possibilities of interpretation arising from either of the two causes which have been above specified and assigned What confusion would this have introduced into the Ceremonial part of the Mosaique Law while every alteration of a letter or vowel would have made a new Ceremony and there would have been as great diversity of rites as there was possibility of variation and all pretending to the same divine authority to justifie and vouch themselves how would the people out of that innovating humour which is natural to the populace of all the world have divided and subdivided themselves into several Parties Conventicles and Factions and how would the Priests as fast as revenge or ambition or opiniatrity and affectation should prompt them have put themselves in the head of disagreeing Sects and would have fomented those differences among the Jews with the same real or pretended zeal and earnestness that the Non-conformists do now among us only with this advantage that the Jews might have done it when the interpretation of places for want of a standing punctation was left so much to every man's honesty and judgment with infinitely greater plausibility and pretence of warrant from above than our dissenting Incendiaries can do who are so shamefâ—lly driven out of all their posts unless it be their ignorance knavery and impudence which are citadels impregnable against all the power of argument in the world and can only be taken in by the faithfull and vigorous execution of severe and wholesome Laws how would they have lampoon'd and ridicul'd the Prophets and how would the several Parties by a several way of reading pointing or accentuation have discharged the several Prophecies at one another Lastly what strange uncertainty would this have brought upon the Law and Prophets how would it have confounded all those Prophecies that foretold and all those Rites and Sacrifices that typified and shadowed out the coming of the Messias And by consequence how would it have perplexed and entangled nay plainly evacuated and disanulled all the evidence which we have besides the unquestionable miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles for the Christian Religion how would it have baffled and defeated that argument for our Saviour's Person and Doctrine upon which he himself laid so mighty stress that he despaired any miracle how great soever should perswade them with whom the testimonies of Moses and the Prophets were of no force and signification For upon supposition of such infinite variation as the Promiscuous use of the Original Hebrew before the use of points would have introduced these testimonies could not possibly have been of any weight or value with any considerative or thinking man because the several readings by their mutual opposition would have destroyed and supplanted one another It is so far from being true that the ancient Jews were permitted the promiscuous use and reading of the Law that it seems rather to have been denied to most of the Priests and Levites themselves for we are to consider that in the distribution of the Levites to their several employments there were none admitted to the actual exercise of any sacred office whatsoever till they were arrived to the age of twenty years and that at that age they were only capable of the more servile or handy-work employments and as they arrived to greater maturity of years so they were admitted to offices and employments of a more honourable nature that there were some appointed for Porters others for Singers whose business was only to be instructed in the Songs of the Lord without any obligation that appears to any particular study of the whole Law And so for those that were employed in dressing or preparing the sacrifices or in sprinkling the blood it was not requisite they should learn this skill by a personal converse and acquaintance with the Law as well because all the Ceremonies belonging to the performance of such Ministeries as these neither were nor could be prescribed in the Law it self without swelling it into a much larger Volume than that in which it is now contained as hath been already observed to the shame of all Non-conforming scruples and to the undeniable justification of humane institutions in religious worship as because it is seen that things of this nature that is the ceremony and formality of Offices whether Civil or Divine may be and are actually handed down to men in a traditionary way as it is possible for a man and many a man actually does understand the Laws of England sufficiently well and yet in the practice of a particular Law-Court is not half so well skilled as an ordinary Attorney Besides all which it is still further to be considered that at the return from the Captivity of Babylon as hath been already observed Esdras did not only instruct the people in the knowledge of the Law but also the Priests and the Levites themselves Nehem. 8. 13. which would have been needless if all the Priests had been equally instructed in the knowledge of it or if some of them unless in those matters which belonged to their particular charges which as well as the Law it self were now by seventy years disuse forgotten had not been either altogether or very nigh as ignorant as the common people Wherefore it is most reasonable to conceive that as the line and family of Aaron were of all the Levitical race the highest in the Priestly dignity among the Jews insomuch that the Priests and the Levites are frequently distinguished from one another in Scripture though it is true that the Levites were Priests too though in a greater latitude as well as Aaron and his sons being all of them equally substituted instead of the first born and all of them dedicated though in a less degree to the service and ministery of the holy things I say it is highly reasonable from hence to conclude that the more particular knowledge and study of the Law was confined to the family of Aaron who were those Priests most properly and strictly so called whose lips in the language of Malachi were to preserve knowledge and to whose custody alone as being the most sacred depositum in the world the Original M S. of the Law it self or the most Authentique and unquestionable Copy of it was committed Deut. 17. 18. It is not certainly for nothing that the Letter or Commission of Xerxes to Esdras in Josephus is thus superscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Esdras the Priest and Reader or Interpreter of the Law of God and so he is called again afterwards in the body of the Epistle it self which is to me a plain intimation that the skill of reading and much more of interpreting the Law was in the time of Esdras a great rarity among the Priests themselves for that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Reader somewhat more is implied than what the Jews afterwards in their Synagogue