The Causes of Dissentions and Schisms in the Authors of them BUt besides this they are more odious in their causes whether we consider the first Authors of them or the Followers As for the Authors of them the Apostles set forth them to be persons led by such motives as did abandon all respect to Christ Rom. 16.18 that They served not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own Belly 2 Cor. 3.3 Gal. 5.20 Phil. 3.19 1 Tim. 1.19 They were called carnal Seditions and Heresies are reckoned amongst the works of the flesh They are said to be the enemies of the Cross of Christ whose God is their belly and whose glory is their shame The putting away of a good Conscience and making shipwrack of the Faith is their character Pride and covetousness are said to be their grand principles ib. c. 6.4 Tit. 3.11 Subversion and Sin is their state of Life S. Peter and S. Jude give them characters full of horror Thus in the â—ucceeding ages of the Church the Historians who give us an account of those Heresies and Schisms which arose in it do also tell us how great Monsters they were which did bring them forth and there was in every Sect many opinions and practices that rendered all Christians of whose number they pretended to be odious even to the Heathen The abominations of the Gnosticks are not to be named even by a sober Heathen for the vilest acts of uncleanness which would dishonour even a Stewes were taken up by them for Duties of Religion which shewed the causes of their dissentions to be exceeding hateful It would be tedious to survey all and give a particular account of the causes of every Sect. One instance will be sufficient and it shall be that of the Donatists a great and lasting dissention which had a complication of Wickednesses to bring it forth into the world It began at the Election and Ordination of Caecilianus Bishop of Carthage whereby the ambition of Botrus and Caelesius two Presbyters of the same Church and Competitors of the same Dignity being disappointed to depose him they conspire with other Presbyters to whom Mensurius the preceding Bishop had in the times of persecution delivered the Church-Plate to be kept private that it might not be a spoil to the Persecutors these men had refused to deliver to Caecilianus to whom at his Ordination the Inventory of Church Goods was given up the things committed to their trust and that they might ascertain the prey to themselves they laboured to draw the people from Communion with the Bishop This separation was forwarded by one Lucilla a rich woman who having been displeased with Caecilianus because when he was a Deacon he had admonished her to behave her self as the other Christians in the publick Worship she continued her passion to him now made a Bishop and by her gifts and promises corrupted others that they should depose Caecilianus and set up in his stead one Majorinus who lived in her house To strengthen this Separation they call to Carthage Secundus Bishop of Tigisita Primate of Numidia who together with other Numidian Bishops in a Council at Cirta had mutually convicted one the other to have been Traditores i.e. such who had delivered up the Holy Scriptures to be burnt by the Gentiles and so having pardoned one the other that they might not be questioned by the other Churches of Africk did willingly embrace this occasion of making and compleating a Schism at Carthage whereby also they might hide their Indulgences one to the other at home by their severity to others abroad removing from themselves the suspicion of that Crime which they condemned in others These men being entertained at Carthage by those whom Ambition Anger and Covetousness had made factious did condemn Caecilianus unheard as being ordained by Faelix Bishop of Aptungita who was accused to have been a Traditor and then set up Majorinus in his stead and so formed that Schism which for a long time troubled all Africk and polluted it with much blood This one instance is enough to shew how Dissentions in Religion may and sometimes do owe their Original to the lusts of men and that evil Affections though different and various may yet amass men together in the same Schism and that however we hear of nothing now as it was probable they did so then pretended for a dissent but Conscience Yet we know that men live and dye by the same rules and the same lusts in this age will work as they did of old in the same circumstances and whatsoever is of such an extract must needs be hateful SECT 4. The Causes of Dissentions in the Followers AS for the Followers of these Dissentions although it is possible many of them may be led aside in the simplicity of their souls by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness of such as lie in wait to deceive Ephes 4.14 yet we find the Scriptures often censure such of lusts also which give them over to the arts of those who lead them captive 2 Tim. 3.6 2 Tim. 4.3 2 Pet. 2.19 As an Averseness to the sound doctrine which contradicts their lusts an Affectation of Novelty having itching ears or of too much Liberty greater than will comport with the Discipline of the Truth An affectation of some more then ordinary knowledge thus the Apostle saith Col. 2.18.23 Jude 16. some were beguiled by things which had a shew of wisdom St. Jude saith that the Hereticks of his time did speak great swelling words by which he implyed the Gnosticks who did abuse the people with a strange noise of words that signified nothing but their followers imagined to have the secrets of wisdom And thus St. Augustine saith that he was a follower of the Manichees for 9 years together having sleighted the Religion his Parents had educated him in and that because they promised not to require any mans faith Aug. lib. de Vtilitate cred c. 1. unless they made the truth clear and evident and therefore this captivated him being young and when he was by reason of some knowledge in the disputes of the learned Garrulus and Superbus i.e. talkative and proud 2 Tim. 4.3 2 Pet. 2.19 Another cause may be a want of love to the Truth 2 Thes 2.10 Hence comes their Loathing all pains that are necessary for the searching after the Truth and from this a Compliance with those opinions that are importunately imposed upon them by their Relations Add to these the Envy at those whom the Providence or Spirit of God hath advanced either by more useful Graces or to more splendid conditions this was it which made much of that noise which was in the divided Church of Corinth Weakness in not differencing between the Lives and Professions of those that continue within the Church so Audius as Epiphanius saith began his schism and sometimes Injuries received from those that are for the Truth make morose and cholerick minds
Example Profession and Munificence But alas however effectual the Examples of Kings if bad are to the licensing of Vice yet Experience shews how little though good they prevail to an Imiation of Vertue especially in a Corrupt Generation for such cannot bear even with the Virtues of Heroical Princes Besides the Slanders which the several Sects raise upon a King that dissents from them blunt all the force of his Example and draws even his noble Acts to occasions of Jealousie Moreover it is an unusual way of Governing in things of so great Concernment as Religion is only by bare examples When Corruptions are strong and high vigorous Laws only can give a check unto them Nay the first thing that Schismaticks and Hereticks are taught is to Despise Kings and cast of all reverence to Princes as those that have so much of the World that they have nothing of Christ And although the personal profession of a King may be an encouragement to the Truth yet it is no provision for the Peace for the neglected Sects will through envy encrease their animosities against the indulged party and so lay aside that reverence which is due to the Prince as a Common Father and look upon him with that indignation as is used against a professed Enemy As for the Munificence of Kings to the Religious they approve it doth more enrage the Factions Constantine's Charity to the Catholicks in Africk that communicated with Caecilianus first heated the Schismaticks to libel against him Had not the Liberality of our Ancient Kings raised Bishops above scorn and put them in such State as kept off contempt together with want they might have been as quiet now as a President of a Presbytery or a German superintendent notwithstanding their pretensions to sole power in Church affairs But now the favour of the Prince is a mark for envy and if He hath no other Guard for his peace his Goodness shall summon troublesome and envious Spirits to Mutiny and Sedition SECT 8. That a Toleration is not the way to our Peace and Settlement THus it being proved that the Magistrate is obliged and hath a rightful power to restrain Dissentions in Religion and to hinder those destructive and sad Consequences which necessarily flow from them and that he cannot attain his end either by his Example Profession or Munificence to what he judges to be truth I conceive it follows that he must use the most proper Means of all Government which are good and wise Laws and a due Execution of them when made What these Laws should be is not for private and particular persons to prescribe this was the itch in the late Confusions and did increase them but is to be left to those whose Province it is whose Advancement above the common Level gives them the best prospect of the Inconveniences and Necessities of the people whose Experience in the wayes of Conversation can suggest what is most suitable and being Ministers of God for this very thing may expect his blessing for their direction The Undertaking therefore of this discourse is not to determine the use of Power but to shew that a Toleration of Dissentions is not as is pretended in several Pamphlets the way to the peace and happiness of this Nation Because it cannot remove the Causes of our Distempers nor hinder the destructive Effects of them For if these Dissentious are as it is said the wretched causes of our want of Settlement and it can be proved that a Toleration of them will make them neither less in Number nor in their Malignity how can it be thought that we shall be any thing the better for a Toleration of them I shall therefore 1. Give some reasons in general that a Toleration will not remove Dissentions nor hinder their effects 2dly That a Toleration is not for the Interest of our Nation at this time 3dly I shall answer the reasons which are urged for it SECT 9. That a Toleration is not the way to remove our Dissentions nor to hinder their effects 1. UNless it were evident that the men who speak and write for a Toleration do plead their own Interest which commonly imposes upon the understanding we might wonder how they could ever imagine that a Toleration were the only way to wast Dissentions or make them languish as to their malignancie that we should have more Peace by permitting the Breaches of it and come to a Settlement by encouraging our Distractions If indeed it were plainly acknowledged that all these Dissentions grew from a Spirit of Contradiction then perchance a Toleration might suffer them to languish in their own fury and wast for want of Opposition and by leaving men to their own giddiness let them come to Quietness by their fall But then this may render the Condition of Princes despicable who must purchase their peace by the Prostitution of their Authority and get Obedience by giving no Commands But this Love of Contradiction although it be sufficiently implyed to go a great way to the effecting of our Dissentions since it is so common a maxime among the Dissenters that an Indifferent thing becomes unlawful by being commanded yet this is not publickly professed and therefore is not urged for a Toleration But Conscience is most pretended to be the cause of our Dissentions To take of this pretence it is not necessary and it would be tedious to discourse how vain are the Pretensions of the greatest part of Dissentions to Conscience and how difficult it is for the Dissenters to make out their Pretensions and what measure of Liberty is to be afforded to them Our subject requires no more then to show that a Toleration of Dissentions that pretend to Conscience will not abate either their Number or their Effects For the Conscience which is pretended to colour Dissentions is either Erroneous or Dubious or Scrupulous because in many Dissentions about the same thing the Consciences of one party only can be guided by true and certain Principles all the rest must be abused by Errors Doubts or Scruples Now although it lies not in the power of mortal men to keep the Consciences of others free from any of these Yet they may take of all Incouragements to Error and so make men more Diligent in the search of the Truth when it will not be safe to Deceive or be Deceived They may also restrain men from proposing their doubts and scruples to the trouble of weak Consciences the disquiet of the Church and the scandal of those who are without And for this they have the practise of the Apostle for their rule Who commands the Christians and Churches to do all that in them lay to hinder such things as did administer to Contentions as by Withdrawing from them and Rejecting them which are the expressions of Excommunication the greatest punishment the Church could inflict Thus he commands Timothy 1 Tim. 6 4 5. To withdraw himself from men that doted about Questions and strifes of words
Council disobey the Emperour's Command That they should not without his permission return to Africk they also prosecute him with Detraction as being corrupted by the Catholicks He being justly incensed by these Indignities commands their Churches to be taken from them and themselves to be banished Yet about four years and an half after whether overcome by their importunate Petitions or being willing to apply himself wholly to the business of Arius he remits their banishment but with such expressions as shews he did abhor them for in his Letters that left them to their Liberty Brevic. Coll. Di. 3. cap. 6. he calls them Pessimos Christianae pacis inimicos i. e. Most vile men and Enemies of the Christian Peace and he is said therefore to have taken off their Banishment Aug. Ep. 152. and to have permitted them to their own fury Quia jam caeperat Deus in illos vindicare i. e. Because God had begun to take vengeance of them From this time they grew more restless and came to that height by the time of Constans to whose part of the Empire Africk did belong that as Gratus Bishop of Carthage in his return from the Council of Sardis informed him the Church of Africk was in a miserable condition by reason of the Donatists For by their followers the Circumcelliones they did resist the Governours of the Provinces and wandering through Towns Villages and Fairs pretended to be the Restorers of Publick Justice and upon that account they suffered none to be secure of their Possessions they did set slaves at liberty to injure their Masters and delivered Debtors from the Creditors burning the Bonds betwixt them and many other acts of injustice He therefore advised that Emperour that though there was little hope of reducing the Leaders of the Factions yet if he would send some Ambassadors thither to perswade the People to Unity and to this end to bestow some Charity among the poorer sort he might possibly prevail to draw them off and weaken the Schismaticks Constans follows the counsel that was given and sends Macarius and Paulus to disperse his Charity among the People and to perswade them to Unity The Donatists fearing the effects of this Charity write to all their Sect that they should not receive the money from the Ambassadors and stir up the Circumcelliones to assault them with force upon which Macarius in order to his own safety gets some Bands and Troops for his own Guard who slew many of the Phanatick Invaders in their attempts and having master'd their boldness the Council was gathered called the first Council of Carthage which did again condemn them But it was not long after that Constans was murdered and so those Donatists returned to their old Insolencies being not as is probable restrained by Constantius because they had joyn'd themselves to the Arrians whom he favoured But when Julian the Apostate had gotten the Empire by Petitioning Aug. Ep. 48. apudeum Sola Justitia locum haberet and slattering that professed Enemy of Christianity with whom they said Righteousness only had place they gained that power whereby they drove the Orthodox from the Churches in those places where their number was most prevalent and committed many Slaughters where they could not be resisted violated the Virgins that professed Chastity Aug. Ep. 50. put out the Eyes of some cut off the hands and pull'd out the tongue of a certain Bishop burnt the houses of private men fired the Churches cast the Scriptures into the flames and committed so many crimes as made that place and Generation miserable and infamous The following Emperour Valentinian did nothing to suppress them only set forth an Edict against their Rebaptizing and that without any Mulct at all His son Gratian did also forbid the same and Command that those places only which they had taken from the Orthodox in the Rebellion of Firmus should be restored These neglects of the Emperours either busied too much with the Cares of the declining Empire and imployed in the Resisting the rising Tyrants were not much different from a Toleration And in that time the Donatists grew to that Greatness and Security that they fell into Factions the Primianistae and Maximianistae and being secure from all Laws against them they were so bold as to make Laws themselves Aug Epist 166. that is one Faction of them against the other for the Primianistae sent a Cryer to proclaim at Sinis that Whâ—soever should Communicate with Maximianus his house should be burnt At this time their Number was so great that the Catholicks in the time of Theodosius who made no Law against them in Particular but only against Hereticks in General which Law the two Sects pleaded one against the other were afraid to deal with them by the Laws of Emperours which were against them and the Pro-Consuls being terrified by the violence of the Circumcelliones thought it most safe to Tolerate them But notwithstanding all this when Honorius the Son of Theodosius who succeeded him as to the Western Empire made a severe Law against them and bound the Governours of the Provinces under the same penalty as was to be inslicted on the Criminals if they did not execute it it did so much contribute to the Vnity of the Church that Saint Augustine in his Epist 48. to Vincentius an Heretick saith He could shew him many Aug. Ep. 48. O si possem tibi ostendere ex ipsis Circumcelâ—ionibus quà m multos jam Catholicos manisestos habeamus damnantes suam pristinam vitam miscrabitem errorem quo se arbitrabantur pro Ecclesiâ Dei facere quicquid inquieta temeritate saciebant qui tamen ad hanc sanitatent non perducerentur nisi legum istarum quae tibi displicent vinculis tanquam phrenetici ligarentur even of the Circumcelliones the fieircest Zealots of the Donatists now become manifestly good Catholiks who did condemn their former conversation and miserable Error whereby they thought all that their rash fury ad made them do was done for the good of the Church of God who had never been reduced to that Soundness of Mind but by the Laws that were made against them Ib. Quam multi ex ipsis nunc nobiscum gaudentes pristinum pondus perniciosi sui operis accusant satentur nos sibi molestos esse debuisse ne tanquam mortisero Somno ita morbo veternosae consuetudinis interirent And again How many of them now Rejoycing with us do accuse their former Practices and Confess that we ought to have been thus troublesome to them least they had perished in the Disease of their former Conversation as in some deadly sleep And in his Epist ad Bonifacium He saith Aug. Ep. 50. Jam verò cum istae leges venissent in Africam pâ—aecipuè illi qui quaerebant occasionem aut saevitiam surentium metuebant suos verecundabantur offendere ad Ecclesiam continuò transierunt Multi etiam
qui solâ illic à parenbus traditâ consuetudine tenebantur qualem vero causam ipsa Haeresis haberet nuaquam antea cogitaverant nunquam quaerere aut considerare voluerant nunc ubi caeperunt advertere nibil digaum in ea invenire propter quod tanta damâ—a paterentur sine ulla difficultate Catholici facti sunt That when those Laws came into Africk those especially who did wait for an occasion but were either afraid of the Cruelty of the Phanaticks or were unwilling to offend their Relations did immediately joyn themselves to the Church Many also who were joyned to the Donatists by a Custom delivered to them from their Fathers but had yet never understood what cause there was for that Heresie and never intended to search and consider it yet then when they began to inquire into it and found nothing in it yet should deserve an adherence even to suffering they without any difficulty become Catholicks So that after these Laws that Sect did daily decline and the more obstinate Remainders of them joyn'd themselves to the Goths and Vandals that then invaded Africk or else were mingled among the Pelagians an Heresie that arose about those Times This instance shews how Toleration and Connivance doth not diminish dissentions in Religion and how wholesome Laws do serve to Unity But were we without all other instances we cannot forget what was the issue of Toleration in our own Nation and our own dayes That Faction which designed the ruine of our Church and State aiming to get a party for themselves after they had quite overthrown all whose Cares were to be for Discipline did then give Liberty to all tender Consciences By which the Dissentions of Religion were so far increased that it was the wonder of all considering men how it was possible so few years could produce such a prodigious Catalogue of Heresies All these also were carried on with the usual Effects of Schism The Independents fastening Antichristianism to the Presbyterians The Anabaptists charging the Independents of some relicks of theman of Sin The Seekers damning all for Apostates The Antitrinitarians and Socinians daily belching out Blasphemies against the Son and Holy Spirit of God The Antinomians casting off the Law of God and the Quakers all Light to walk by but their own How was every house filled with Strifes and Contentions and even the very Foundations of Unity and Society which are Families torn in pieces In every Town almost which was capable of two Preachers one Presbyterian and another Independent were planted there like the Roman Malefactors condemned as it were by the Factions to Dispute and Preach and Strive one with the other for the greatest Congregation Hence became they the sport of Atheists and Papists How often did the contending Sects give Disturbance to the Authors of their Liberty sometimes declaring for them and another while bewailing their Lukewarmness forcing the Usurpers to all their Arts now to cajole one Sect and to morrow to comply with another The Remainder of the Parliament is one while adored and at another time scornfully slung off The Cruel Tyrant is now their Idol anon their abomination and they who raised them were often forced to mourn for their Imprudence in a Toleration which being at first invented as an Instrument for their Design was afterwards the Engine of their Ruine This is so fresh an instance that it is undeniable that Toleration was in great part the cause of our former Miseries and our present Disquiets SECT 11. That a Toleration is not for the interest of this Nation at this time THose who so earnestly press for a Toleration of Dissentions in Religion represent unto us for the Necessity of it the great Miseries of the Nation which come by them and which we acknowledge to be the most necessary Consequences of them But it is also as evident that a Toleration will not be a Remedy for them because that hath been the very cause which hath hatch'd them to this Number and Strength Whoever heard of the Names of Seekers and Quakers before the general License was granted for every one to be as mad in Religion as he pleased Independents were not vulgarly known and their Name was as Obscure to the world as the nature of that Sect was to the Authors themselves in their beginning till such time as they were summoned from America and Holland to confront Presbytery Presbytery it self was but in Project and Design managed by a few private persons in the dark Ministers of little note But when men were free to break their Oaths to renounce their Subscriptions and cancel all the Bonds of Faith then those who had conformed Preached and contended for the established Worship appeared with the highest zeal for that which before they dared not to own and hoped to get that by the ruines of Episcopacy which they despaired to acquire while it was standing If then a Toleration did open all the avenues to our Miseries how can we hope it will be a Way to our Happiness And how can that be for the Interest of England to which it owes all her past Troubles and present Disorders It is for the Interest of England as much as for any other State to have no Factions nor to permit any thing that may either form or nourish them But the Dissentions among us are now but as so many several Factions in the State which I do not remember can be said of any of the antient Schisms and Heresies in the Church Some of them might be against the Persons of the Princes who did not favour them but I have read of none that endeavoured the Change and Alteration of the Government of the Empire But it is so with us The Papists are for the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome Some of the other Sects are for a Commonwealth and think Monarchy in the State inconsistent with the Parity that is to be in the Church Others are for the Fifth-Monarchy and think their own Graces a title to Dominion under him whom they look for to come and until he doth come In all of them there be very many of broken Hopes that have fallen from those Fortunes and Power which they were Masters of in our Troubles when they had either some great or little Office in their Cities Shires or Parishes And now having lost them and restrain'd in the Tyranny they then acted think that at present the safest way is to smother their Discontents under some dissatisfaction in Religion and that to retrive their lost Hopes they must get a Toleration For when their Sects are allowed their eminency in their parties will give them advantages to drive on their designs in the State and make them Considerable either to bring about or obstruct a change Therefore Faction in the State being thus interwoven with Dissentions in Religion the Toleration of one sort is the permission of another And we may justly fear that they will use their Opportunities if
he saith that the Anti-Puritan Interest as occasion serves can contest with Kings and pretend Conscience too If he means this of the Church of England he is not able to give an Instance and an Accusation without a Proof is but a Slander If he meant it of the Papist Why doth he urge it against us for they do as all other Sects do But he would not have these things repeated for he saith Acts of Indempnity should be also Acts of Oblivion I hope he would not have us lose our Understandings as well as our Memories of what was done The Act did not intend this that bound us not to Remember to Revenge but yet Reason would have us Remember to a Caution that we come not to the same Miseries and that is best done by considering what is past In Sect. XXI he considers this Latitude in respect to the Interest of the Church and Clergy In this Consideration he first Commends the Non-Conformists and having shewed how far they agree with us he saith The Ministers of this Perswasion are Godly and Learned able and apt to teach the People and no small part of the Congregations in England feel the loss of them We are not to wonder that he assigns so great Virtues to Ministers of his own Perswasion It hath been the practice of old for every Sect to be immoderate in the praises of their own Party Nay it is very rare if they do not impale all that is praise-worthy to themselves Tert. l. de Praescript c. 41. Nunquam facilius proficitque quà m in Castris rebellium ubi ipsum esse illic promereri est so Tertullian observed of the Schismaticks in his time Proficiency in Virtue was no where so easie as in the Congregations of those that revolted from the Church for to be among them was to be deserving But let it be true concerning some of them as I believe it is yet we do not take it as an evidence that they are so nor that they are the more so because they scruple the Injunctions of the Church Besides even Godly men may and have been through some Infirmity Prejudice or Mistâ—kâ— through want of Experience in the ways of Converse or through Implicity of heart being obnoxious to the arts of other men and so made their properties for some strange designs Such persons I say may and have been the Causes of great Disturbance to the Church Which men had they kept themselves in their proper Sphears might have been thought the Blessings of their Generation and such as the World was not Worthy of But forcing the Bounds of their own private Condition endeavouring to set up Vnpracticable Forms of Government or Imposing upon others have set the World in such disorders that they have been deem'd the Pests of their times Sozon l. 8. c. 11. Thus the Religious men that lived a devout Life in the Desarts of Aegypt while they kept themselves in their Cells had the admiration of all that knew them but when their Weakness had betrayed them to that gross Heresie of the Anthromorphitae and they would by a Sedition impose their Opinion upon the Bishop of Alexandria they were then a reproach to Christianity and a trouble to the World The case of Savonarola at Florence was the like Guicciardin Hist l. 3. while he kept himself to his own duty in Preaching Repentance to the debauched Italians and severely taxed the Corruptions of the Church of Rome he had a reverence due to him and did much good in his place But when he did seem ambitious of or at least not decline the esteem of a Prophet and did endeavour by the Authority he had got to change the form of the Common-wealth and therein to regard more the Interest and humours of his Party than the Publick good he met with the Publick hatred and fell as a disturber of his People Thus Godly men may be the Causes of the publick disquiet their godliness makes them not Infallible nor fit for Government Which if they aim at without or against a Lawful Authority the Church may reject them lying under such Circumstances and answer the Lord of the Harvest with the direction one of his Chief Shepherds St. Paul hath given Mark them that Cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine you have received and avoid them But how will they answer the Great Shepheard for having declined the feeding his Sheep only for Trifles as they call them i. e. things not unlawful yet Commanded by the Magistrate his Substitute and the Church his Spouse let them think upon that dreadful Account with horror In the next place he charges the Bishops with more crimes then he could number virtues for his own friends but the best of it is he cannot prove them And he was sensible that he could not for he doth not downright affirm them but as Impotent women vent their Passions he insinuates them by many malicious and implying Interrogations as 1. Whether the Bishops and Dignified Clergy and those of their Perswasion can believe that the Church of God in these Nations is terminated in them alone No they do not believe it for it is even hoped by them that Christ hath a Larger Interest in these Realms and according to their hope they admit those very Dissenters to the Communion of the Church But observe where this Author places the larger Interest in Christ that is in Non-Conformist Ministers for they only are debarr'd from the Opportunities of the Ministery 2. He asks Whether it shall be said of the English Prelacie that it cannot stand without the ejection of Thousands of Orthodox Pious Ministers Men may say what they please if they never think of giving account of every idle and false word but they have no reason to say so For the English Prelacie is the greatest encouragement of Orthodox and Pious Ministers that ever Protestancy saw and hath had the Testimonies and Observance even to sufferings of far more exceeding Number of Thousands then ever their Adversaries could be accounted Do but compare those many thousands that were undone by the Covenant with those few that did not Conform and then it will appear but an empty boast to talk of their Number Howsoever neither Episcopacy nor any Government Civil or Ecclesiastical can stand if it do not secure it self by frustrating the attempts of those that Plot and contrive against it How great a slander it is to say That Prelacy dreads Knowledge in the People I have shewed before and I never heard of any but this Author that had that Maxim No Ceremony No Bishop How worthy had it been for this Author to have proved that the Bishops did fear the Preaching of Indubitable Truths but this can no more be proved than that his Party are Peaceable The Established Clergy refuse not their Brethren if they will come to joyn in the Work of the Lord and give but Security that they will be Peaceable all the Emoluments
they do not perform it sincerely God will require an exact account of them But as to this they are much hindred by the Obstructions which Dissentions make and being distracted by the perversness of those that are without they cannot be quiet to look after those that are within the Church But the third Condition is the main thing the Author drives at The Setling the Church in a due Extent If the Extent here spoken of be to Comprehend all the Different Perswasions and Contrary Opinions this they cannot do it is contrary to the Duty which Bishops owe to God and Man to permit Errors and embrace a Communion with Darkness But if it be meant of an Extent and Comprehension of Persons that have laid aside those false Perswasions and will now contend together with Bishops to feed the Flock of Christ and to preserve the Unity of it This Bishops ought to do as their Interest and the Interest of the Gospel from which theirs cannot be separated And this the Bishops have done and are ready to do For all men know how willingly they have Instituted those to Livings who before had been the Enemies of their Order how they have invited into their Order and the Church Preferments those that have preached and writ against them and we want not any Examples that they have been sincere in their Tender for some have really received what was offer'd and we should have had more had not their followers hinder'd them by minding them of their own former Doctrines And in this our Bishops testified themselves to be of that Peaceable Temper of the Primitive Bishops For the Catholick Bishops Melchiades of Rome Aug. Ep. 162. and others of Africk offer'd to the Donatists that if they would joyn themselves to make up the Unity of the Church they would give them Communicatory Letters although they had been Ordained by the Donatist Bishops and that wheresoever there were two Bishops one of the Catholick Part the other of the Donatists yet he should be first Confirmed that was first Ordain'd which soever it was and that the other should be provided for elsewhere or else the survivor should succeed in the same Church And when the Donatists objected to the Catholicks that they coveted and took away their Livings St. Augustine answers Aug. Ep. 50. Would to God they would become Catholicks and then let them possess not only what they call their own but also whatsoever is ours in Peace and Charity with us This is a Latitude which the Church did allow and which the Bishops are now ready to admit The third Interest which is that of the Nobility and Gentry which in Sect. XXII he endeavours to reconcile to his Latitude which he thinks they may dislike as that which will render the Citizens and Commonalty and all sorts more Knowing and less Servile Here the Author goes upon two mistakes 1. That this Latitude will make men more Knowing which I have already shewed it will not do for instead of building up men in the Knowledge of Christ it will fill them with empty notions of their Way and Party so * Tertul. de Praesc c. 42 De verbi administratione quid dicum cum hoc sit negotium illis non ethnicos convertendi sed nostros evertendi Tertullian observed of the Hereticks of his time What shall I say of their Preaching when this is their business not to Convert Unbelievers but to subvert those in our Communion 2d Mistake is That the Nobility and Gentry do not like the Commonalty should be knowing This is the same Suspition he raised of the Clergy that they were afraid of the Diffusion of Knowledge and this is so unworthy an Humor that I cannot think Noblemen and Gentlemen inclinable to it But he fays that by being knowing they will be less Servile and less Obsequlous to the Wills of Great men The Laws of England secure every man from Servitude the poorest Cottager is a free-born Subject and therefore as the Nobility and Gentry cannot expect the slavery of Citizens and Commons so they cannot dislike their knowledge upon this only account that it makes them more free But this Author conceals the true Cause why this Latitude should be dreadful to the Nobility and Gentry which is that it will increase Factions and Dissentions in Religion and where they Raign there is not that Respect and Reverence given to Persons of Honour as is due to them Clem Rom. â—p ad Cor. For Clemens Romanus minding the Corinthians of the sad Effects of their Dissentions puts this as One The Base rose up against the Honourable and the Vile against the Noble And they may well remember how often they were affronted and slighted by mean Persons in the times of the late Toleration All that the Author saith upon this head is some Politick Observations but nothing to the purpose He concludes in Sect. XXIII With the General Security that comes by this Latitude in which he supposes the Common Peace may be setled in this Comprehensive way which he neither hath nor can prove nor will as he dreams the Necessity of Powers and proceedings extraordinary be taken away by it but rather encreased For no Nation doth tolerate Dissentions in Religion which hath not a Standing Army to restrain the Effects of it as appears in Histories of Antient times and in the Practices of modern Nations And therefore this is it which more needs those wayes and means as may trouble them who are tender of the Lawful Rights and Liberties of English men than the enforcing the Laws upon Dissenters which may be done by the Ordinary Civil Power We are not to be Frighted with what he saith That the Severities of Laws against Dissenters may at length come home to them or theirs who are for the Execution For we are to do whatsoever is found necessary for the Safety of the Church and State and leave the future Events to the Providence of the God of Peace We know that the more peaceable we are at Home the more Powerful we shall be abroad But we also know that Licensed Dissentions will always perswade our Neighbours that we are Weak It is well known how foreign Writers have observed Our Ruine might be easily wrought by the Puritans who did Dissent from the Publick Establishment They are not to be accounted Disturbers of the State nor of their own House who follow the Advice of the Wisest King To fear God and the King and not to meddle with these that are given to Change For their Calamity shall rise Suddenly FINIS