found that Reason Conviction and Calmness have been the winning ways upon scrupulous Persons or else it cannot in Charity be thought that they would come behind others in accomplishing the work of Peace and Uniformity They cannot but know what Destruction without Reformation will follow Excommunications if they proceed to Writs and follow the Course of Law to the uttermost Many of our Ecclesiastical Courts have taken that way and can any of them shew us any one Man converted to Uniformity by it Many have removed from one Country and Diocess to another and wrought themselves out of Trouble or abide in them to this day But can they shew any one Man they have brought over to a sincere and hearty Conformity Their Molestations go nearer the Heart to separate them than to unite them If the Church should for Nonconformity proceed to Sentence and thence to Writs and thence to Execution what way can they take more effectual to disobligle the Nation The Gentleman and Landlord suffers in the ruine and loss of his Tenant the thousands of poor Families that live by Manufactures suffer in the Losses or Removes of their Masters and as many as actually suffer of what Condition soever and their Families and Posterity that suffer in them are made the poorer but never the better Christians they are all disobliged and broken from us Besides they know the charge of their Dissent which is often-times no more than pay your Fees and go home The Officers of Courts get but what doth the Church get thereby It is visible that those parts of the Land have the most for number and the most resolute Nonconformists that have been most severely used The more many Men suffer the more Arguments they gather for the Goodness of the Cause for which they suffer The far greater part of our Church-Governours have abstained from rigorous Courses Now the Civil Magistrates are rowzing up and awake as out of sleep But what 's the Cause of this Excitation The Conservators of the Peace are harnessing themselves for the Defence of Church and State But what fear of the King's Life Is it not the Acclamation of all Protestants is there in this one Dissenter among them Long may the King live Who doth hold up a Finger to shake the Throne or Government or who is there that hath heard of as much as a whisper of any Conspiracy If there be God who seeth in secret reveal it quickly by the Guilty themselves and there is no likelihood of a Concealment if there be such a thing for none but beggarly mad Men can be in it the service then must be done to the Church The Magistrates rise up in Defence of it But doth not the Magistrates Vigilancy reproach the Severity and Sleepiness of the Watchmen how can any that at other times and occasions do not talk with any great Concern Affection or Reverence of the Bishops now be so zealous If the Bishops should proceed with one mind roundly to Excommunications and break up Families by it who would sooner complain than Gentlemen that suffer by it who more earnest or be more complemental in Intercessions But now why should they be so forward to undo great Numbers to the apparent detriment of the Common-wealth when the Bishops are so backward to give them their Friends or their Dependents Trouble What Alterations will the Execution make in Rents and Trade and who will sooner feel the Effects than he who takes his Ease and lives high and cannot bear the fall of his Revenues If the Magistrate appear in his Power when the Church calls for his help it will be duty and self-denial too to take part of the Odium of what is counted a Persecution but to hazard the breaking of many thousands who can in some parts of the Kingdom make a Rise or fall of Commodities and the loss and trouble of abundance more by Participation to their own Dishonour is a greater Kindness to the R. R. Bishops than was expected or can be rewarded with their Blessing Secondly It is more God-like Christian and Humane to use Clemency and follow the Examples of the Indulgent especially when the hurtful Effects of Severity are great and apparent and the Benefit doubtful God is wise just and holy but continues to uphold the World by Mercy Christianity is full of Mercy and the Author of it is a Reconciler and Mediator Human Nature so given to offend would be destroyed but for Love Forbearance and Mercy Mercifulness is like the soft Cement that binds all the Stones in the Fabrick of Human Society which else would never hold together but fall without it With ut it Men are like rugged Stones and Severity doth not square but chop and should never be exercised but when Society cannot be preserved without it If this Age will follow Examples of the most exact and strict Governours it will find more room for Mercy than hath been shewn to them that have been excluded for want of it But if it will set it self for an Example it is a question whether wise Posterity will follow it The High Commission Court was a kind of Inquisition so the wise Lord Treasurer Burleigh wrote to Arch-Bp Whitgift But according tomy simple Judgment said he Fuller's Ch. History B. ix An. 1583. this kind of proceeding is too much savouring the Romish Inquisition And of all Men the Puritans felt the weight of it The Puritans were opposite to the Bishops and their Government and Courts and they made themselves and the Queen their Government and Hers all one what was said or done against them was done against Her Majesty As in Mr. Udal's Examination and Trial is to be seen Pr. Lond. 1643. Can. 4 6 9 11. And the Opposition between the Puritan Discipline and the Episcopal was greater than hath been urged ever since the King's Return If Church-History were silent we may learn frrom the Canons of 1603 what Language was common in those times But now the Controversy is not between the Presbyter and the Bishop but between Bishops acting in a narrow Room and a larger Diocess yet they are not discontent if the King shall honour some as he doth with Lordship nor continue their Revenues The Independents supposed to be Brownists but are not give not the Language of Antichristian to Bishops or our Congregations but look upon us as parts of the Catholick Church The Bishops are Antichurchians as against their Congregational Power but not Antichristian Dr. Owen of Church-Peace c. Dr. Goodwin on the Ephes §. 35. which was the Language of the Brownists but those that were more opposite or hung off were more kindly used Mr. Fox a N. C. held his Prebend of Salisbury Dr. Humphreyes was Dean of Winchester President of Magdalen Colledg and Regius-Professor in Oxford Mr. Tho. Cartwright the Head of the N. C. was at last much favoured by his mighty Antagonist A. B. Whitgift made Master of the Hospital in Warwick
Opposition Oratorically but truly and upon Proof the one studies knows and performs his Duty to God and his King and to all Men according to his Knowledg the other knows neither and makes no Conscience in appearance of either he is for the King and you but as he is for the Devil for what he can get by his Service he is ungodly and profane a daily Transgressor of the King's Laws as well as God's and more than one have been cut off by the Sword of Justice having first been rejected by all honest Men the one lives a poor contented Life praying for his King and for all orders of Men and praising God fares hard and goes meanly whilst the other runs in debt cheats his Creditors swears and damns and robs on the High-way or breaks open Houses In a word the one walks in the way of Godliness and Honesty and labours to draw others with him the other neither goes in himself nor suffers others to enter that would And behold and be astonished ye Heavens at this the one is in danger of losing all he hath and suffering because he hath no more to lose for labouring to save Souls and the other hopes to be rewarded with a third part of many of his Neighbours Goods A surer way it is to turn Informer than play the Thief or cheat his Creditors but all hath not done their Work the end of many hath been according to their Work All this is spoken of some of them You are Gentlemen of Estates and cannot think that the ruine of thousands of Traders Farmers Tenants yea the impoverishing of many of good Condition can be a Service to the Common-wealth If you do not suffer an immediate Loss yet hundreds will and what is a Loss to so great a part will be an impairing of the whole That great States-man Sir Walter Rawleigh in the Parliament 35th of Elizab. spake these Words Historic Collect. c. of the 4 last Parliaments of Q. Eliz. p. 76. by Mr. Townshend I am afraid there is near 20000 of them the Brownists in England and when they are gone who shall maintain their Wives and Children Had there been but 20000 Dissenters in England they had been rooted out before now if some had prevailed But who shall maintain a far greater number of Wives and Children when their Husbands and Parents are undone by the Penal Laws And who will get by it not the King his third part if come into his Exchequer will not countervail the loss of his Subjects What have the Poor got this many Years or what have they got that could neither keep nor get nor pay their Debts before they took to Informing As many of you as are Gentlemen of Hospitality relieve many poor at your Doors or other-where can you think it a Charity to relieve Beggars and issue Warrants to make many Beggars that either cannot dig or beg or that keep many to their Labours that else would beg that bear their Burdens in the Common-wealth and are no burden to it Your Place and Office requireth Wisdom And I may be bold to say That the Renowned Sir Matthew Hale was as wise as strict as just as able a Lawyer as the ablest of you all that keep the Chair it is no disparagement of the learnedest and gravest of you all to take him for an Example See his Life by Dr. Gilbert Burnet whose Moderation towards Dissenters is a part of his noble Character you have known what hath been the concurring sense of all our Parliaments since 1672. If none of these shall be your Precedents I beseech you be pleased to consider it is your Wisdom to understand the Duty of your Places and the Matters that are brought before you especially in Cases that concern the Liberties Livelihoods and Estates of many thousands in the Land I humbly conceive you cannot with a clear Conscience proceed against the Dissenters except you understand 1. The matters for which they suffer and that you may see in several Writings 2. Attend to the scope and reasons of the Acts upon which you proceed 3. Distinguish between Preacher and Preacher between the sound and the unsound and other Circumstances and choose rather to give up your Commissions than to act against God and your Conscience by punishing Well-doing as if it were Evil doing That Preaching and Praying which tends to Men's Salvation and to no evil end either to the King or his Government cannot be punished safely without being accessary to the evil Intentions of those designing Men who were the Politick Promoters of those Laws nor without great obstruction of true Godliness and of a most desirable Vnion among Protestants 4. You ought not to act like meer Machines or irrational Instruments If so the Weak and the Rash that can but write their Names to a Warrant or a Mittimus might be as fit as you for your Offices but as Men of Vnderstanding Wisdom Conscience and Religion and if the Laws are hard and too severe for meer Nonconformity be Intercessors with the King and Parliament for his Subjects and your fellow Christians As Just Men Try the fitness of the Witnesses whether they are Boni Legales Punish not Religious Assemblies of peaceable Men under the odious names of Routs and Riots and let not the sound profiatble and peaceable Preachers be ruined with a measure of Punishment only due to the turbulent and rebellious And if by many Years Experience you find no Sedition or Disturbance to the Kingdom only to the minds of some that are too controversially disposed to Passion and Contention or if you find it only to be a Schism a Church-matter leave it to the Church-Men to judg it according to their Law If you maintain the Civil Peace you are happy Instruments in the Government and what more is required of you Noble and honoured Gentlemen I do not presume to dedicate this as to Patrons but humbly offer and submit the Reason and Argument to your Consideration and suggest two things 1. If we believe a Catholick Church of the same Faith in different Forms and Modes why shall not our Fellow-Subjects and Natives professing that Faith in a different Form share in your Charity as parts of the Catholick Church To love them as Christians of the Catholick Church and of the same Faith with our National Church in all things and yet punish them that preach Catholick Doctrine and observe all the Ordinances of the Catholick Church is an odd kind of Love and Charity 2. If there be any among us that are holy sanctified Preachers and Hearers they shall be saved in the last day You know the Process of that great day of Judgment for what Causes the unrighteous shall be condemned I was naked and ye cloathed me not in Prison and ye visited me not Mat. 35.43 O how will it agree with this to say I was in Power and I execated the Laws to distress of Goods and Imprisoment to
and hidden Traitors More particularly many of them have deserved well from the Church and State which in humane Probability had never been restored but for their Loyalty Religion and Conscience This made the most Renowned Sir Matthew Hale say whose sence may be as soon taken as most Men's alive for his Wisdom Loyalty Integrity and Impartiality in all Acts of Judgment Many of the Nonconformists had merited highly in the business of the King's Restauration and at least deserved Dr. Burnet ' s Life of Sir M. Hale p. 65 66. large Octavo that the Terms of Conformity should not be made stricter than they were before the War Yea to advance as high as I can in an unquestionable Authority His Majesty in his Gracious Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs said pag. 5. That while he was in Holland he was attended by many Grave and Learned Ministers from hence who were looked upon as the most able and principal Assertors of the Presbyterian Opinions and to Our great Satisfaction and Comfort found them Persons full of Affection to Us of Zeal for the Peace of the Church and State and neither Enemies to Episcopacy or Liturgy but modestly to desire such Alterations in either as without shaking Foundations might best allay present Distempers And in his Gracious Speech to the Lords July 27. 1660 to hasten the passing the Act of Oblivion My Lords if you do not joyn with Me in extinguishing this Fear which keeps the hearts of Men apprehensive of Safety and Security You keep Me from performing My Promise which if I had not made I am perswaded neither You nor I had been now here I pray let Us not deceive those who Brought or Permitted Us to come together The greatest Charge against them is That they are Separatists and Schismaticks Besides that this remains in debate between the Accusers and Accused Suppose them to be so Yet 1. The very Independents I mean the chief of them besides what they have declared in the above quoted Declaration of their Faith at the Savoy to be neither Brownists nor Donatists Besides many Passages in Dr. Owen's Books Mr. Nye hath declared himself Case of great and present use Lond. 1677. 35th Serm. on the Ephesians p. 477 fol. as to our National and Parochial Ministry and hearing us preach and Dr. Good lays down the Opinions of Brown and Donatist and saith And against these I for my part and many of my Brethren profess that they are in an Error c. The Turbulency of Brown's own Spirit ran him into many Oppositions and Troubles but he the greatest Schismatick of those days enjoyed his good Parsonage while he lived The first Emperor that made Laws against the Donatists was Theodosius but they were not punished for their Schism the greatest in the World as such but the occasion of the Penal Laws against them Augustin Bonifacio Ep l. 2. Epist 50. was their barbarous abuse and beating of Bishop Maximinian almost to Death tearing of his Altar c. and other insufferable Violences and Furies The Riots and Murders committed by them and the Circumcellions the same Faction was the cause of Severity against them But how far are our Nonconformists from breaking Peace offering Violence or any rude Incivilities by Word or Deed is apparent to all that are not given to wrong them or to take pardonable things too ill from them Lastly The Causes of their Sufferings have been spoken of before to be neither Heresy Sedition nor Rebellion The very Light of Nature seems to abhor punishing the Religious and Just therefore the Heathen Persecutors have falsly imputed horrid Crimes to holy Christians from which they are clearly vindicated in the Apologies of the Fathers The Arrians were Calumniators of the Orthodox and so are the Papists and unpeaceable Lutherans But we that live together should know one another better and be both just and modest The Papists damn us as Hereticks therefore curse and persecute the immoderate Lutherans charge the Calvinists with the denial of Gods Omnipotency Communication of Properties and many other Heresies and Blasphemies But what Heresy can we charge upon the Nonconformists Had Antiquity left us such Confessions and Explications of Faith such Treatises in Divinity Expositions of Scripture Defences of Religion we should have honoured them as much as now many dispise them they are full and firm in their learned and rational Opposition to Popery in all the parts of it And let us observe how we reckon some in former Ages as ours who came short of them and yet we must eject them and multiply Sufferings upon them as none of ours we reckon John Wicliff Jerom of Prague Husse and those plain and heroick Confessors the Waldenses and Albigenses Bohemians c. ours they are in our Martyrologies and among our Witnesses for the Truth in the dark times when nothing was almost visible but Popery Shall we account them Martyrs when the Papists had more colour for their Persecutions and bloody Usages of them considering the Principles of the Papists and the Opposition of those Martyrs than we have for loading our Brethren with Punishment upon Punishment considering the Principles of our Religion and the Quality of the Nonconformists both as to Religion yea and as to the Separation it self For surely the Separation of those Worthies from Rome as Babylon and the seat of Antichrist and a mortally infected Church was a greater provocation of the Roman Powers against them than a peaceable dissent from a Church acknowledged truly Christian only for some scrupled unnecessary things indifferent we say therefore may be spared sinful say they therefore cannot be assented to and some private Doctrines besides c. That which comes nearest our unhappy Case is the Interim that Book that was urged by Charles the V upon the reformed Churches in Germany requiring the Observation of Popish Ceremonies as indifferent things for a time until a General Council should be called What Divisions did it cause among the Princes and their Divines among the Divines differing one from another What woful Dispersions and Miseries attended the refusal of it are at large related by Sleidan in his Commentaries Sleidan p. 20 21. This Book contained Popish Doctrines which the Protestants rejected but the things that divided them were the Adiaphora or media Ceremonies and indifferent things which many refused and suffered to very great Extremities But he who terrified them and persecuted them was a great Emperor and a Papist and the Arguments used against it were because it was not consonant to Scriptures and went against their Conscience and Light received After this the Adversary the Devil stirred up another Controversy attended with a dreadful Division and Persecution to the desolation of Churches and Schools John Brentius invented the notion of Ubiquity of Christ's Body and propagated it by the Apostle of Ubiquity Jacobus Andreas but they gave it a pompous Title of the Majestick Communication of the Divinity and Divine Properties
spoken of by Sir Walter Rawleigh and deserve to be transcribed In his Conceit the Brownists were worthy to be rooted out of a Common-wealth I have shewed in the foregoing Plea our N. C. are not Brownists Collections p. 76. but what Dangers may grow to our selves if this Law passeth it were fit to be considered for it is to be feared that Men not guilty will be included in it And that Law is hard that taketh Life or sendeth into Banishment But now our N. C. are not as much as tried by a Jury but upon the Evidence of a scandalous Informer and Villains hired by him to swear what is for his coveted Gain where Mens Intentions shall be judged by a Jury and they shall be Judges what another Man meant But that Law that is against a Fact that is just and punish the Fact as severely as you will c. as was quoted before from that great and famous Man to turn this Law upon Orthodox sound Men and spare the Papists is too plain a perversion of the Law from the sence of the greatest States-men in that prosperous Reign of Q. Elizabeth no Justice can pretend Obligation from his Oath or Conscience so to do 5. They are no more obliged by their Office to execute these Laws against Dissenters than they are to execute other Penal Laws Is there not a Law that no Papist shall go above five Miles from his own House Elizab. 35th c. 2. or place of Abode after lawful Conviction Are all Papists convicted according to Law and do they keep their Bounds Is there not a Law of this Kings for Observation of the Sabbath and who is convicted or punished by it Is there not a Law prohibiting Gaming above one hundred Pound at one meeting and have all Gentlemen and Gamesters kept it The Act for 12 d. a Sunday for not coming to Church was intended against the Negligent and not the Recusant it being against Law to punish Men for the same fault twice as Mr. R. Owen said upon the debate upon that Bill Collect. ib. p. 173. But the N. C. are and have been punished many times and ways Who can tell how many thousands of negligent Persons live in London that go neither to Church nor Conventicle and who is so zealous against these as against Conventicles Surely then the Obligation of the Justice's Oath is not taken to be so strict in some as in all Cases as indeed they are or else a Justice is not bound to enquire after Transgressors but to keep his own Place and do Justice when complained unto 6. But suppose That the Informers of Conventicles are honest and true Men idoneous and fit or the Meeting be notorious then consider that the Law requiring the Justice to proceed against them is a Penal Law Any Justice of the Peace or Chief Magistrate that shall wilfully omit the performance of his Duty in the prosecution of this Act shall forfeit a hundred Pound one moiety of it to the Informer but to whom the other moity shall be forfeited is not expressed If the Informer will be so couragious as to sue the Justice so omitting his Duty he loses 50 l. Now the difficulty lieth in this The Law against Conventicles doth require the Justice of Peace or chief Magistrate to make Record of such an Assembly that makes it his Duty or in case of Omission he shall forfeit 100 l. if the Informer will be so bold as to sue for it here 's the Penalty the Law is a mixed and not purely Penal Law If any Magistrate be so strictly conscientious as to hold himself bound to execute his Office he may inquire into two things First The goodness and necessity of the Law which makes his Duty necessary Secondly His Omission is supposed and upon that Supposition his Penalty is assigned For the first There is no scruple to be made if any do under pretence of Religious Exercises contrive Insurrections but then it is the Magistrate's Duty to God the King and his Government to execute the Laws But 2. No such Crime being proved but pretended to suppress all Religious Exercises performed without the Liturgy and the Penalties being grievous to the Subject and the Law in effect declared to be grievous by several Parliaments altho the Law be actually in force yet it is under the Censure of Parliaments and hath lost its credit and reputation of Goodness and must be looked on as one of those Laws that are better null'd than continued and the Execution of it must be suspended as tending to unnecessary vexation of good Subjects and a scandal upon the Protestant Dissenting Brethren to render them as suspitious as our Enemies the Papists And if we may guess at the Law by the Penalty upon the Justice that omits his Duty or rather at the Intention of the powerful part that carried it they did not so much provide against Insurrections as against the total ruine of the Nonconformists for can the forfeiture of a an hundred pounds be a sufficient punishment upon him that omits to make a Record of so mischievous a Contrivance as an Insurrection no not the greatest Estate in England can recompence such an Omission nor is the Life of any Justice an equal Punishment To the second I propose this The Omission being supposed the Forfeiture is certain if the Informer will be so daring but 50. l. First Whether it be not better that a Justice of the Peace or Magistrate should venture the Loss of 50 l. which he doth but venture for what Informer will dare to sue Gentlemen of Honour Estates and Interest than many Families should be utterly undone Secondly If the Execution be better forborn as I hope I have cleared then it were better a Justice of Peace should lay down his Commission than act against the real Interest and Union of Protestants and make spoil of many Mens Estates Thirdly If Forfeitures upon Justices should be recovered and the payment too heavy for them to bear then they may do great Service to their King to the Church to their Country 1. To the King as Pliny did to Trajan concerning the Christians sed nihil aliud inveni quam Superstitionem pravam immodicam representing to the King they find no Seditions nor Insurrections nothing among the Nonconformists but their Nonconformity 2. To the Church by the same Representation as a means to heal us 3. To their Country by forbearing the ruine of thousands of Familes But if you shall for saving 50 or 100 l. or for ambition of a Place of Power or to rise into Business and Preferment or from Prejudice against Nonconformists or distaste and enmity at Religion proceed you sin exceedingly against God and Man I beseech you Honoured Sirs despise not the humble Address of a Minister of Christ in the Church of England on the behalf of Christ and his divided Church and multitude of precious Souls and out of Duty to your selves