that the Chiefs of the Party are only the Remainders of the old Rebellion and the Republican Faction and such as profess no great kindness to Monarchy or Sovereign Princes These that are so stein'd with Guilt and Disloyalty are they that are every where so zealous to make their Cabals of Zeal and their Musters of Reformation or at least to keep up the Cause and themselves above despair by keeping up a factious and discontented Party that if ever opportunity should favour them may have Strength and Interest enough to act over their old Designs of Zeal and Reformation Now at present it is the Way and the Wisdom of these Men to bend all their Forces against the Ecclesiastick State not only to disguise their Intentions but to remove the main hindrance of their Designs For 't is the Church that is the best part of every Commonwealth and when all Projects are tried Religion is the best Security of Peace and Obedience The Power of Princes would be but a very precarious thing without the Assistance of Ecclesiasticks and all Government does and must owe its quiet and continuance to the Churches Patronage 't is the Authority that has over the Consciences of Subjects that chiefly keeps the Crown upon the Princes Head and were it not for the Restraints of Conscience that are tied on by the Hands of the Priest and the Laws of Religion Man would be a monstrously wild and ungovernable Creature For though the World be kept in some tolerable Order notwithstanding there are too many Persons in it of Atheistical and Irreligious Principles yet of all Subjects these are the most dangerous and disloyal because 't is impossible to bring them under any effectual Engagements of Duty and Allegiance and hence it is that all Seditions and Treasons are headed and managed by such Leaders At least though they are not able to do so very much mischief because their Party is not very considerable yet were all Mankind of their Humour and Perswasion nothing could be more insecure and destitute of help than the Condition of Princes because no Man according to their Principles could be so foolish as to think himself any way obliged to venture Life and Fortune for the sake of their Interest and whenever they are attempted Subjects would be determined as to their Loyalty by the chance of Success and not by any antecedent Obligations and whenever the Princes Affairs were brought into any straight or danger they must leave him to shift for himself and revolt to an Usurper for their own Safety and Interest But those only are Loyal Subjects and true Friends and Servants to the Establisht Government that think it their Duty to adhere to their Prince in all Fortunes and to assist and serve him against all Enemies and 't is their Numbers every where that keep the World in that little order and security that it enjoys for beside the useful and advantagious Offices that they do to the Crown by their own immediate Service 't is their known and sworn Fidelity that in a great measure keeps back wicked and seditious Men from attempting it too lightly Every aspiring Mind or neglected Grandee would be presently venturing at the Throne if it stood naked and unguarded of the Assistances of Loyalty but when they are assured that howsoever their Designs may succeed that there is so strong a Party unalterably resolved to make Head against them and all their Attempts 't is that that chiefly makes such Projects and Practices not so very frequent or easie Now 't is nothing but Conscience and Religion that can awe the Minds of Men to any sense of this Duty and they ever are and ever must be Govern'd by Ecclesiasticks other Persons may tamper with them and inveigle some stragling People but still the main Body of a Nation and especially the sober part of it will chuse to submit themselves to their Conduct whose Publick Profession it is to guide Souls and instruct Consciences so that to them and the discharge of their Duty do all Princes plainly owe the main Strength and Seourity of their Government This Obligation of kindness to the Ecclesiastical State is common to all Civil States and so much as they discountenance the Power and Reputation of the Church so much do they disadvantage the Interest of their own Authority But this reason of State is of greater force and more peculiar usefulness in reference to the present Constitution of the Kingdom of England The Nation is manifestly divided into two opposite Parties the Church of England and the Body of the Nonconformists The former whereof is the greatest Example of Loyalty that perhaps ever appeared in the Christian World Its Clergy are the most Zealous Assertours of the Rights of Princes they have all along undauntedly maintain'd their Supremacy against all Assaults and Invasions they have possest the Peoples Conscienecs with a religious Awe and Reverence of Government they have restrained them from all Attempts of Rebellion or of taking up Arms upon any Pretence whatsoever under the greatest and most dreadful Penalties they have secured them from being abused with the Impostures of Zeal and Superstition and have carefully prevented all the Shifts and Excuses of Disobedience and after they have made Subjection a prime and indispensable Duty they do not evacuate the Efficacy of their Doctrine by juggling Reserves and Limitations And thus are the People train'd up in a Conscience of their Loyalty and take it in together with their Religion and are as strongly principled against the hateful sin of Rebellion as against Witchcraft or Idolatry And of this our Princes have had sufficient proof and experience ever since the Reformation They have ever found all their Subjects of the Communion of the Church of England modest and peaceable and were never troubled with Disputes and Remonstrances Plots and Disturbances from any of her Friends And when Rebellion broke forth and the Royal Power was invaded and oppressed with what Zeal and Devotion did they appear in its Defence and for its Recovery and what Numbers sacrificed Lives and Fortunes out of meer sense of Duty and Allegiance For though it is not to be doubted but that some might engage themselves in the Royal Cause for other ends yet 't is manifest from too many sad Circumstances that the true and hearty Sons of the Church were acted by Principles of Conscience and Religion and whilst others might be bought over by the Rebels and Usurpers no Temptation could prevail upon their Minds but they were constant and impregnable in all Conditions They forsake their Prince You must first force them to renounce their Faith their Loyalty stands upon their Religion and they were Martyrs as well as Souldiers for his Cause and in his Service This is the peculiar Genius and these the distinguishing Principles of the Church of England and as far as they are admitted into the Minds of Men so far do they work in them this religious
tender am I of the Laws of Good Nature and Civility even towards all that have forfeited their Right in them could I ever have discovered the least appearance of Integrity either in his Writings or Actions or the least tokens of Repentance for his former Crimes or the least ground of hope for his future Reformation but when nothing appears but reprobate Hardness and Impenitence and an obstinate persisting in his old Rancour his case is desperate and when Men are past Grace they are past Mercy too And thus having done him Right and his Pamphlet Reason and prevented the Design of escaping the Disgrace of his Overthrow by sending abroad new Challenges before he had discharged himself of his old Engagements it is high time to return to the Argument upon which I was entring when he came in my way to divert me viz. To consider what likelihood or how much Danger there is of the Return of Popery into this Nation For my own part I know none but the Nonconformists boisterous and unreasonable Opposition to the Church of England for if ever that be Re-erected it must be upon the Ruines of this as long as this stands in Power and Reputation it will easily beat back and baffle all the Attempts of Rome and all its Adherents Our Reformation is Establisht upon such unblameable Grounds and Principles that all the Learning and Wit of our Adversaries was never able to fasten any Reproach or Dishonour upon the Constitution it self and next to the Puritan Cause there was never any so unequally managed as the Controversie between us and the Romanists their most plausible Reasonings are evidently no better than little Tricks and Sophisms and seem intended by themselves rather to abuse the Simple than to satisfie the Wise in so much that it is very hardly credible that those Persons who have lately appeared in the Cause can notwithstanding all their seeming Zeal and Earnestness be really in good earnest in their Pretences but 't is somewhat more wonderful that they should have the Confidence to suppose the World should be so simple as to think them so when they can boast such idle talk for Demonstration as themselves unless their Skulls are stufft with Mud and Saw-Dust cannot but know to be meer Trifling and arrant Sophistry And no wonder for every Cause must be defended as it can their Innovations are so undeniable and the Design of our Reformation so apparently Apostolical that those People must needs argue at a strangely wild rate that will be Demonstrating against Experience and Ocular Inspection and nothing could preserve them from being hiss'd out of the Pit but that they are extreamly confident and most Readers sufficiently ignorant so that the Church of England may safely defie all their Opposition she does not stand upon such trembling Foundations as to be thrust down with Bullrush-spears with sure Footings and Oral Traditions with Labyrinths and Castles in the Air. If there be any danger from them it lies more remote and out of view and if ever they get any Ground or Advantage of us they will be bound to make their Acknowledgments to the Puritans and the strength of their Assistance Not that these are a whit more considerable and dead-doing Enemy than the other they are Triflers beyond contempt and when they have in their mighty Zeal done their poor utmost and spent all their Ammunition a Man must be very splenetick that can refrain from laughing at the folly and the childishness of their Attempts No their strength lies in other Weapons and their danger arises from other Interests their Faction may be made use of as Instruments to dissolve and unravel the establish'd frame of things but they can never be able to set up any of their own Models and crazy Fancies in lieu of it they are too humorous and extravagant ever to be reduced to practice a little Experience quickly brought them all into the scorn and contempt of the common People and it would be a pleasant speciacle to see either the Classical or the Congregational Discipline Establish'd by Authothority But alas they are only excellent at their old Destruction-Work and beside that their Conceits are too freakish to be ever setled upon any lasting bottom they will always be supplanting each other by their mutual Squabbles and Animosities so that though they can never compass their own giddy Designs yet by their perpetual and restless Opposition to the Church they may possibly be the occasion of its utter Ruine and Dissolution and by that Change may probably make way for the Introduction of Popery And this is most likely to be effected by these Means and upon these Accounts I. By creating Disorders and Disturbances in the State For the present Fanaticks are so little Friends to the present Government that their Enmity to that is one of the main Grounds of their Quarrel to the Church They are generally fermented with a Republican Leven and are faln out with Monarchy it self as one of the greatest Instruments and Supports of Antichrist and no Liberty with them either of the Subject oâ— of Conscience but in a Commonwealth and that is a mighty piece of their Zeal and their Project to reform the Government of Church and State to the Platform of the Low-Countries T is the Good Old Cause that is the strongest Band and Endearment of the present Schism and the greatest Agents in and for Conventicles are Officers and Chaplains of the old Army And the warmest and most zealous of them such as have given the World no great ground to suspect either from their profess'd Principles or open Practices that they have the least Concern or Tenderness for Religion But this is the only plausible Device that is left them to rally and randevouz the People of God into a Body by themselves and distinct from the rest of the Nation and so keep up a Party always ready and prepared for their Purposes that if ever they may gain any hopes or advantages of recovering the Kings Power or the Bishops Lands for confident Men despair of nothing they may play the holy Brotherhood upon Demands and Attempts either of the old or some other new thorough-godly Reformation and enrage their Fiery Spirits against the Abominations and Idolatries of the Whore and Antichrist Though the danger here is not very formidable because Fanaticism it self is so much worn into Contempt unless among the meer Rabble that 't is never likely to gather strength enough to grapple with the Royal Power but yet whatsoever Power it has if it have any lies in the Old Army and the Old Cause And if we observe the true Patriots of the Godly Party in every County we shall find them generally such Persons as were never much concerned to give his Majesty any great assurance of their Loyalty and Allegiance and there are very few if any of any considerable Interest or Estate among them that was not raised by Plunder and Sequestration so
be able to expose them to popular Scorn and Infamy for 't is manifest that their Principles will never much take in the World in that the generality of Men are not to be work't off from their natural sense of Religion that ever did and ever will keep the strongest Party in spite of all Opposition and whoever attempts against it must of necessity be run down with Reproach and Disgrace and that transports them beyond all bounds to be thus contemptuously kept under by ignorant and ill-bred Fops and it becomes the great exercise of their Wit and their Drink to entertain the Company with pleasant Stories of Priests and Black-coats This humour has prevail'd so far in our Age beyond what it could ever arrive to in former times that it is become in some degree Gentile and fashionable every Man now has Wit and Pride enough to despise a Parson and he is no Vertuoso that does not in his common and Table-talk call and prove them Cheats and Impostors and some Persons that one would think should have more Breeding or more Sobriety affect the extravagance out of meer wantonness and others that are no declared Enemies to the Cause of Religion are yet well enough content for other reasons to have its Officers kept low and despicable but for some reason or other they meet with disrespect enough on all hands And now though this ill usage signifies very little to those against whom it is intended because it falls upon an Order of Men that are above its regard and resentment in that the Clergy of the Church of England know themselves far enough from being obnoxious to any contempt but what Sacriledge has made unavoidable and though we take them under all the Disadvantages that Plunder and Robbery and Reformation as some Men have managed it has brought upon them they are at this very time vastly the farthest off from being justly contemptible to mention no other Order or Profession of Men of any Clergy in the World the preheminence is so evident that it clears the comparison from all possible suspicion of its being either proud or odious But though this unkindness be able to do them so little harm yet it falls very heavy in its mischievous Consequences upon the Publick For all wise States have hitherto always given the deepest respect to the Presidents of the sacred Rites and setled the greatest Priviledges and Immunities upon the Church as well for Reasons of State as for the Ends of Devotion In that no Government can support it self without the Assistance of Religion and the Assistance of Religion is ever proportioned to the Power and Interest of the Clergy its Esteem as it is in all other Arts Sciences and Professions depends upon the Reputation of those whose Office it is to dispense its Mysteries and Publick Solemnities they have always and every where found the same Fate and the same Entertainment so that to make the Priestly Order any way contemptible is to enervate the force of Religion upon the Consciences of Subjects and thereby to destroy the greatest Strength and most lasting Security of the Civil Government So interwoven are the Cause of God and the Prince and the Priest that no Man can be an Enemy to one without proclaiming Hostility to all Is not this wise work then and fit to be endured in a Christian-Commonwealth for the witty People to be so much concerned to make the Profession of the Clergy vile and despicable especially when this whole Design is at last founded upon no milder Supposition than that Iesus Christ himself is the great and leading Impostor for if he were seriously vested with any Authority from Heaven their Commission from him is too evident to be called into question so that if the Power they claim by vertue of his Grant be forged and insignificant Usurpation it is only because be abused the World with Tales and false Pretences to a Divine Authority i. e. only because he was the lewdest and most prostigate Impostor that ever appeared amongst Mankind And this no doubt is a notable piece both of Policy and Good-manners to be own'd yes or endured in a Christian-Commonwealth But yet however passing by this horrid Blaspemy against our Blessed Saviour and if our Religion were nothing else but as all Religion is lately defined the Belief of Tales publickly allowed and the Priesthood only a Succession of Cheats and Iuglers yet after all this they are and must be allowed necessary Instruments in the State to awe the common People into fear and Obedience because nothing else can so effectually enslave them as the dread of invisible Powers and the dismal Apprehensions of the World to come and for this very reason though there were no other it is fit they should be allowed the same Honour and Respect as would be acknowledged their due if they were sincere and honest Men because unless that be supposed they can never bring that assistance that is absolutely necessary to the support of Government and the preservation of Society But so far are they from being allowed that Respect and Reputation that is necessary to the usefulness of their Function that they are even Out-lawed from the common Rights of Iustice and Humanity One would wonder how People should so combine in such an inhumane and imprudent baseness but that the reason is so very plain and obvious The old Probity and Integrity of our Nation is fled and gone and what remains of it has taken Sanctuary in the Church and its Friends that are assaulted by a Fanatick Rage on one hand and a base-natured Atheism on the other and then no wonder if they are treated accordingly when they are faln into the hands of such Salvages and Cannibals And in truth when I consider the temper of both these sorts of Men that the one hates Peace and the other hates Mankind and withal some present and some probable Circumstances of things it were easie to represent to view a black and gloomy prospect of things but it is to no purpose to affright our selves with distant Miseries and it is better to leave the care of future Events to the Wisdom of Providence sufficient to the day is the evil thereof only let me desire thee Reader to consider whether that Nation be according to Humane Accounts likely to continue long in a firm and setled Condition of Peace a great part of whose Inhabitants are tainted with such malignant Principles as make them to delight in Mischief and Confusion Atheism and Enthusiasm are apart and by themselves the most desperate and dangerous causes of Misery and Calamity to Mankind but when they combine Interests and join Forces against a common Enemy what Government can withstand their Fury in that there is no Wickedness that is necessary to the carrying on the Cause that one of them will not undertake and be able to go through with They are provided with all sorts of Pretences and prepared for all kinds of
wish every mans Books had as much learning and ingenuity in them as A Sancta Clara's have Yet if he conclude from hence that I and he are of the same Communion he doth me wrong Judge Reader how partial men are to deny that liberty to another which they assume to themselves He proceedeth This A Sancta Clara is still the Queens Chaplain c. And we have reason to believe the Queen to be so moderate as to be of the same Religion Whether he be the Queens Chaplain or not is more than I know The Queen hath had many Servants of Mr. Baxters own Communion who have had more influence upon her Counsels than ever A Sancta Clara had He hath reason to believe that the Queen and he were of the same Religion but no reason to prove that so seriously and so weakly which all men acknowledge that either the Queen or he had any hand in the pretended design of Grotius and his Followers no man can believe From the Queen he passeth over to the King what to do to accuse him of Popery He cannot prove it nor all the World to help him Yea he professeth openly that he believeth no such thing Not only his Conference with the Marquess of Worcester but his Life and Death and that Golden Legacie which he left to his Son do proclaim the contrary to all the World What is his aim then To shew how far he was inclined to a reconciliation That is the duty of every good Christian But did he preferr peace before truth Had he any design to introduce Papal Tyranny into England That is the crime whereof he accuseth those whom he nick-nameth Grotians The Devil himself cannot justly object any such thing against him He cites the Articles of the Spanish and French matches but is not able to cite one word out of them which maketh for his purpose And this alone that there is nothing in them for his purpose is a convincing proof against him that all his pretended design is but a dream I may well call it his design for it is the phantasm of his own brain and never had any existence in the nature of things He mentions the Kings Letter to the Pope written in Spain If he himself had been there at that time upon the same condition the King was at that time he would have redeemed his liberty with writing three Letters to the Pope such as that was or else he had been much to be blamed But what is there in the Letter Is there any thing of the Grotian design No I warrant you Observe how all his conjectural reasons make directly against himself Perhaps the King calls the Pope Most Holy Father a great crime indeed to make such a civil address which the common use of the World hath made necessary He who will converse with a Fryer in a Roman Catholick Country must do little less and he that will write to the Great Turk must do more Such compellations do not shew always what men are but what they ought to be or what they are or would be esteemed Next he tells us of the choice of Agents for Church and State Very trifles Kings must chuse their Agents according to the exigence of their affairs But if the qualifications of Agents did always demonstrate the resolutions of Princes I could more easily prove King Charles a Presbyterian than he a Grotian and bring more instances for my self I am confident he cannot instance in any one Agent for Church or State that ever had his Grotian design but I can instance in many who have had contrary and worse designs I shall not stick to tell him with grief that which hath been in a great part the cause of all our woes In some Courts it hath been esteemed a singular policie to nourish two Parties upon pretence that the one might ballance the other and the one watch over the other But it proveth too often true that the one Party is disgusted and ordinarily the weaker and worser Party doth countenance heterodox and seditious persons to augment the number of their dependents which evermore tendeth to manifest sedition By this means the rents of the Church have been perpetuated and enlarged and Subjects have been debauched with destructive and seditious Principles the evil influence whereof we have felt to our cost He proceedeth to the Residence of the Popes Nuncios in England It may be during all the Kings reign there were one Nuncio and his Proctor or Deputy or two Nuncios at the most And if we had never had them it had been the better not so much for any great hurt they did but for that opportunity which his own peevish Party got from thence to raise jealousies and Panick fears among the Rabble Unless he could have told something that the Popes Nuncio did in England tending to that end which he pretends he might as well have instanced in the King of Morocco's Ambassadour and said that he came over to convert us to be Turks I thought he would have produced the Popes Bull to his Nuncio to reconcile us to Rome or at least have discovered some secret Cabal or Conferences between him and those Episcopal Divines whom he accuseth He knoweth well there was no such thing and therefore it were much better to be silent than to urge so many things and to fail in every one of them His next instance is in the Jesuits Colledge which had been much better omitted for his credit Did the King found the Colledge No such thing Was he a Benefactor to it Nor that Did he give the Jesuits a license of Mortmain to purchase Lands for themselves to that use Not so much What did he then did he know of the Jesuits and the Colledge and connive at them and it O no. So soon as ever it was discovered it was suppressed By the same equity he might accuse an innocent Prince of all the crimes that are committed in hugger mugger throughout his Kingdom and make him Head even of the Presbyterian Rebellion The last of his odious instances hath less shew of truth in it than any of the rest how vain or empty soever they have been that is the illegal innovations in worship so resolvedly gradatim introduced Perhaps he calls the execution of old Laws Innovations because they themselves had taken the boldness to disuse them It were better to spare this charge lest they get a round peal of their own Innovations rung out in their ears Theirs are Innovations indeed To conclude Doth he think that such disloyal and uncharitable insinuations as these are salved by pretending that he hath not the least desire to perswade men that he was a Papist or that he would not have other men to believe it As if he should say Here are violent presumptions indeed that the King had Popish inclinations yet my charity will not give me leave to believe it other men may judge as they find cause when all he
him all the rest of the Kingdom and only exhibite the martyrologies of London and the two Universities or a list of those who in these late intestine Wars have been haled away to prisons or chased away into banishment by his own party in these three places alone or left to the merciless world to beg their bread for no other crime then loyalty and because they stood affected to the ancient rites and ceremonies of the Church of England and they shall double them for number and for learning piety industry and the love of peace exceed them incomparably So as his party which he glorieth so much in will scarcely deserve to be named the same day And if he compare their persecutions the sufferings of his supposed Confessors will appear to be but flea bitings in comparison of theirs But after all this the greatest disparity remaineth yet untouched that is in the cause of their sufferings The one suffered for saith and the other for faction If he had contented himself to have rested in positive expressions of learned and pious and peaceable c. he had had no answer to this particular from me but silence It is the duty of a Controvertist to examine the merits of the cause not of the persons But his superlative expressions did draw me unwillingly to do this right to the Orthodox and Genuine Sons of the Church of England I will add but one word more that we have seen but little fruits of their peaceable dispositions hitherto but the contrary that they have made all places to become shambles of Christians God grant that we may find them more peaceable for the future FINIS Some Books Printed for and sold by Iames Collins at the Kings-Arms in Ludgate-street 1672. OBservations upon Military and Political Affairs by the most Honourable George Duke of Albemarle Folio Price 6. s. A Sermon preached by Seth Lord Bishop of Sarum at the Funeral of the Most Honourable George Duke of Albemarle Quarto Price 6. d. Philosophia Pia or A Discourse of the Religious tendences of the Experimental Philosophy to which is added a Recommendation and Defence of Reason in the affairs of Religion by Joseph Glanvil Rector of Bath Octavo Price 2. s. The Way to Happiness represented in its Difficulties and Encouragements and cleared from many popular and dangerous mistakes by J. Glanvil A Praefatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe the Doctor of Warwick by Jos. Glanvil Octavo Price 1. s. 6. d. The Life and Death of Mr. George Herbert the excellent Author of the Divine Poems Written by Iz. Walton Octavo Price 1. s. A Discourse of the forbearance or penalties which a due Reformation requires by Herbert Thorndike one of the Prebendaries of Westminister Octavo A Private Conference between a rich Alderman and a poor Country Vicar made Publick wherein is discoursed the Obligation of Oaths which have been imposed on the Subjects of England Octavo 2. s. The Episcopacy of the Church of England justified to be Apostolical from the Authority of the Primitive Church and from the confessions of the most famous Divines beyond the Seas by the Right Reverend the late Lord Bishop of Duresm with a Preface written by Sir Henry Yelverton Baronet Octavo A Collection of Sermons preached before the King at White-hall by the Right Reverend Father in God Seth L. Bishop of Sarum now in the Press FINIS Discourse concerning Evangelical Love c. pag. 18. Defence of Eccles Pol. from p. 232. to p. 264.