Affectation in them Affectation of what of Fines Losses Frowns Threatnings Diminution of Civil Privileges as far as some can deprive them If this be their Hypocrisy verily they have their Reward They go to hear them for Scruples and Fanaticism Let a Divine repent of such a meditated Calumny and Aspersion lest he fall into them So the Heathen objected Sed non ideo bonum quia multos convertit Quid hoc mati est cujus reus gaudet c. Tertull. Apol. chap. 1. Whatever another intends to do that dares to make the Success of their Ministry of the Gospel the Power of God to Salvation upon rational Souls to lead Christian Lives no greater Argument of divine Approbation than the spreading of Mahumetanism and the Success of the Alcoran if he never found the Efficacy of Grace of the Spirit Word and Sacraments upon his Heart let him turn his Thoughts and his Time if not his Pen to make ready for his Judgment and to secure his Peace rather than to rake into Sores and Ulcers and keep them open to get Money as some Beggars do their Sores Consid IX A safe and speedy Union of Diffenters as nearly united as possibly can be made is most desireable that there may be a happy End put to their many Sufferings Religion and Humanity can take no pleasure in the deserved Punishments of Men the Murmurs and Complaints of Sufferers stir and move Compassions and Pity holds the Hand even of Justice in all Cases in which Necessity is not urgent and manifest The Evil of Separation hath been opened when the Evil of their Sufferings hath not been touched upon They are urged with the first but that is but one Side of the Evil let us search into the other Sore to take the whole Weight and Compass of the Mischief that lies upon the Protestant Religion and both run down from the same Cause and he that would stop the Current of Evil in divided Streams and dry up the Flood of Afflictions and Miseries must stop it at the Well head of the Cause They are urged to enter into the Communion of the Church as by Law established because of the Mischiefs of their Separations and it would be a special Service to move our Governors to make their Return as easy as may be by opening the Scandal of their Sufferings If their Consent to our Injunctions were gained the Controversy would be at an end and this Prosecution also But that being not like to be attained this way the Continuance of the Separation is more for the good and profit of the Church than their Sufferings for while they enjoy their Liberty the Gospel is preached and they that are regenerate and called and gathered to Christ are gathered to the Catholick Church tho not united unto a particular Church in some certain Bonds of external Communion But if they were totally suppressed and where they are most narrowly watched and kept in thousands of Souls would lose the Benefit of their Labours and their Hearts are like to be more estranged from us and the Church will still lose the Content and Comfort of their Communion The supposed and aggravated Sin and Evil of the Separation is doubled by their Sufferings and made more incurable by the Exasperation We see and taste the Fruit of above twenty Years Proceedings and better cannot be expected but much worse may be feared To argue for a Release from their Sufferings because they have suffered deeply may seem weak and inconsequent but take them in a Complex of Causes and Circumstances and I do hope the Argument may prove a Matter of Consideration to them that are concerned in these great Matters If a Man should move for a Suspension of the Laws against Malefactors thus Millions have suffered Imprisonment and Death and therefore spare them the Argument is not only ridiculous and weak but weak and sinful because they are Malefactors and the Laws of God both natural and revealed require it and there would be no Safety to the Lives of Innocents nor of Civil Rights and Possessions But to argue Our dissenting Brethren have suffered much therefore forbear to inflict more Punishments upon them is not without some Strength and convincive Evidence 1. The performance of Religious Exercises in a different Form is no such Offence and Crime as deserves to be punished before the Penal Laws decree the Penalties The Difference of the Administrations is made by the diverse using or disusing of Things indifferent some extending their Liberty further than others To use Christian Liberty wisely and as much as may be inoffensively is no punishable Crime but a Duty and if there be not a Liberty in indifferent Things there is none at all 2. But if it were a Matter punishable yet of such Things as are punishable before a Penal Law be made Sed non ideo sequitur eam paenam debere exigi quia boc pendet ex connexione finium ob ques poena instituta est cum ipsa poenâ as Grotius writes De Jure Bell. Pac. lib. 2. cap 4. § 22. Now what can be the Ends of these Penal Constitutions 1. Unity of Mind with our Governors in those Things enjoined that seems to be the Reason of the Assent and Consent which none can be of but such as were so minded before it was required all Reasons and Circumstances perpensed But that all should be of the same mind is impossible in our State That 's an End not attainable and they who propose it propose only for themselves and them of the same Judgment with them and exclude the rest whom the Lord hath received It was a wise and is a celebrated Saying of the Emperor Maximilian the Second to Augustus of Saxe when he interposed for Peueer in the Vbiquitarian Controversies and Persecution The Duke told him he would have all his Ministers agree with him and among one another to which the Emperor answered Ego in negotiis ad fidem conscientiam pertinentibus nec ausim vel velim cuiquam offerre necessitatem aliquam coactione Scis irrito conatu c. I know that will be lost Labour and that it is grievous and dangerous in it self Id nunquam perficies inquit Imperator neque nostrum est imperare Conscientiis an t ad fidem quimque vi cogere Perclius Histor Carcerum p. 361. Hoornbeck Summa Controv. cum Lutheranis p. 657. 2. The Peace of the Church and State may be aim'd at Can there be Peace in the House of God whilst one Fellow-Servant smites another Surely that is not the way to Peace Which brings to my mind that of the Learned Hornbeck Oratione de Ecclesiarum inter se Communiene If we shall receive or treat them otherwise than Brethren whom Christ doth not disdain or think unworthy of so great a Name Place and Honour Atque hoe Christianae charitatis communionisque est fundamentum This is the Foundation also of all Christian and Ecclesiastical Love
and Charity among all Christian Churches and Congregations through the World Let others despise the common Name of Breshren I never call to mind without a singular Affection of Piety that holy and single-hearted Custom among the Ancients both of the Jewish and Christian Age when they saluted one another by no other Name than that of Brethren So did the Tongue express the Mind and testify their Faith and Love c. Communicatio pacis appellatio fraternitatis as Tertullian speaks Faith and Love to God and Reconciliation with his heavenly Majesty as a Father a Participation of the same divine Nature a mutual Acknowledgment of the Marks and Lineaments of God's Children a Consent in the same substantial Truths and speaking the Truth in Love and forbearing one another are more sure Ways to Peace than Menaces and Force At quanti dignius franes dicuntur habentur who have acknowledged one Father God who have drunk in the same Spirit of Hollness who have breathed out of one Womb of the same Ignorance to the same Light of Truth Tertull. ad Gentes But we have other kind of Marks and Names of Distinction we seem to reject all spiritual Kindred with them and extinguish Love to compose Differences and to make Peace Will these Ways ever lead us to Peace 2. For the Peace of the State this may be thought of Through God's great Mercy we find that the Controversy of Conformity and Nonconformity hath not dissurbed the Quietness of the State but as some have made use of it And Church-Peace should be most earnestly followed that the State may know the Blessedness of being incorporated with the Church in the same Government and finding the Blessing of Religion to be so great may be the more tender of its Welfare The Dissenters have not only obeyed Warrants but have made their appearance without Warrants when but called to it by some that had no Warrants so far have they been from giving occasion to the Militia to come armed upon them but some will have it so And the Dissenters give or are ready to give the same Security for the Peace that others do that enjoy it 3. The Dissenters complain of the Laws but much more for their Sufferings either besides or contrary to or above the Laws and to put an end to their Sufferings is to put an end to the Illegalities of many of their Prosecutors The many Appeals and Actions or the forbearing to make Appeals when there hath been apparent Cause the many Errors found out in Courts of Justice where it hath been done them in the Proceedings of Informers and others prove this 4. To put an End to these Vexations and Sufferings is the only way to restrain much Impiety and Unrighteousness in many Men and to delives them from provoking tempting God to plague punish them that carry on this Work The Spirit of Persecution entred not into the Church till Men walked after the Flesh and after that Persecutors have fallen upon the Servants of God the Wrath of God pursued the Persecutors Men should abstain from declaring their dislike disaffection and enmity to Godliness if they loved themselves 5. Yea moreover I do not see how any of the Instruments in the Sufferings of our Christian Brethren can go on and not sin grievously against God Men and Themselves It is plain that they neglect all the solemn and publick Worship of God the standing Means of their own Salvation while they lie in wait to take the Worshippors of God And what their Practice is in other Duties of Religion Truth and common Honesty is well known They come behind none of their Father's Children in Lies False Witnesses confirmed by impudent and notorious Swearing 6. If this Way be not pleasing to God try another if it be not blessed with Success try some other It was the wise Counsel of Livia to Augustus perplexed about the Conspiracy of Cinna which that wise Emperor took Fac quod Medici solent qui ubi usitata remedia non procedant tentant contraria severitate nihil profecisti Ser. de Clement It is known indeed that the Advantages of all temporal Penalties to the Catholick Church changed St. Augustin's Judgment from Lenity to some Severity but never changed it from a sweet Moderation to a Rigor making no difference between some and others as appear in his several Letters of Intercession for the Donatists And for all that some are so strict upon St. Augustin as to note that he but narrowly got to Heaven before Hippo was taken for that hand which he had in that Motion The Severity of the Northern Monarchs in Sweden and Denmark is but ill applied to our Case who cannot rigorously establish our Conformity without the Extirpation or Banishment of an excellent great Number of Christians that have descended from and whose Predecessors sprung up together with the Reformation Lastly Considen Whether it be not better for the Church and the Christian Kingdom to take off these Afflictors from chasing that part of Christ's divided Flock than suffer them to go on For how can that be pleasing to Christ wherein the Enemy of Mankind the Eneiny of Christians above all Mankind and the Enemy of Protestants more than of any Christians because of their clearer Light and Purity and the Enemy of the sincerely Pious above all other Protestants hath so openly appeared and acted in Lies Scandals False-Witness Perjuries Violence and Unmercifulness This is a surer way to lose than to gain them Object If they are lost who can help it How can they be united to us that are not united among themselves They are very far from being of a piece Besides Preshyterians and Independents there are Antinomians Millenaries Anabaptists Quakers should we yield to any one of these we are yet as far from gaining the rest as we are now from uniting all Thus the Reverend Peace-maker of Cork pag. 29. But this Objection of the Difficulty is not past some considerable Reply 1. What if the Bundle of Arrows be broken yet let us gather up as many as we can our Artillery will be the more against our common Enemy Gain any of them and we shall be the more and stronges by that Addition 2. Except the Presbyterians the most of the other Dissenters agree in their Modes of Government so that what you grant to the Party is granted to more 3. Is it Reason and Charily that those who would unite shall not because all will not upon some Abutements 4. Gain some and they will help to draw in others 5. The more are united the sewer remain to be tolerated by whith Toleration I mean no more but a forhearing one another in Love with the use of Gospel-Means to convince and gain them if possible and by the Civil Sword to restrain and suppress them when it shall be necessary and dangerous to the State but not before And I crave leave to make a little Digression upon this
peckled Bird is a Nonconformist in a Princes Court and in most noble Families at a publick Meeting What! is a little Popularity grudg'd them I am grieved to think what a Crime it is to be consciencious Certainly if they are not consciencious they have not common Sense and the opprobrious Jeers and Sarcasins with which they have been treated have not sufficiently set out their Folly if they suffered great Losses to gain the cold Breath of Popularity which would sooner starve than refresh them Who should be so compassionate courteous officious loving and peaceable towards them as we who are Ministers Who should better know the Darkness and Weakness the various Workings of the Mind than we Who should more candidly use them that dissent from us than we who know our many Dissents from our selves at several times and the same Points Who should allow more to the scrupulous than we who know the Weakness of our own Light and ascribe much to the Authority of Conscience Conscience is no Sovereign but Conscience is next and immediatly under Christ the King Conscience is subject to Mistakes It is suspicious that some Mens Conformity is ill built who say That a Claim of Conscience is not to be allowed as if Inferiors were to lay that aside or we can never attain to Peace as if that were to be resign'd up to Rulers but its Judgment is of highest Authority next under God and to be controlled by none but him It is Hypocrisy and Impiety to pretend it and it is too great a Boldness and Intrusion into the Throne of God to judg that they do but pretend Conscience And very ill Service is done to Christianity and great Encouragement is given to Impiety by some Mens arraigning Dissenters for a bare pretence of Conscience by making the dissolute act as securely as if there were really no such Power as that of Conscience Is it not a Word too common Hang 'em hang 'em there is none good no Trust to be given to Men that pretend to Conscience Who should better understand what Unity and Consent is necessary between Christians and what Condescension and Forbearance is necessary Who should better understand the differing Practices of ancient Churches than we And that there is no perfect Unity till we come to perfect Light and Grace We should know that there are hard things in Conformity Subscription and Conformity is the easiest thing in the World if there were no more required than that they will not rebell but support the Government and be peaceable under it If this be all tell them pleinly in these or like plain Words and then see if they will refuse But to impose upon us Maximes of State the Determination of Problems is to bring many Men into the Clouds tho others get near the Sun and have Light enough to read their meaning We should know the Education of a Scholar the Charge of Studies the Necessities of Families and how harsh a thing it is to be too much indebted to Charity since all things have ceased to be common We should upon many Considerations commiserate them and their Families We should be hospitable and not forgetful to entertain Strangers How comes it then to pass that it is such a Crime in some Mens Eyes to be courteous to a dissenting Brother and his very Neighbourhood is become intolerable especially if he preach the Word In a word as I said before we that preach the Word of Reconciliation should be of reconcileable Spirits and Tempers Proud and erroneous Pharisees were given to cast out of Synagogues It is a Sectarian Spirit to make Sects or to use a sound Christian as if he were a Sectary The Spirit of Sanctification is necessary to all that will be saved and for us more than others We declare we have received that Spirit before Ordination when the Holy-Ghost is invocated and we are sent with Authority from him Give me leave to bring to your Minds the excellent Words of Cyprian Idcirco in columba venit Spiritus Sanctus simplex animal loetum non felle amarum non morsibus saevum non unguium laceratione violentum Hospitia humana diligere unius domus consortium nosse cum generant simul filios edere cum commeant volantibus invicem cohaerere communi conversatione vitam suam degere oris osculo concordiam pacis agnoscere lege circa omnia unanimitatis implere Quid facit in pectore Christiano luporum feritas eanum rabies venenum lethale serpentum cruenta saevitia bestiarum He speaks of the Catholick Church in that excellent Book De Simplicitate Prelatorum Barbarity and Cruelty rages in the Wilderness without the Church How unbecoming a Scholar yea a Man a Minister yea a Christian is it to imbitter the Lives of them that are cast out of their Churches and Houses and Free-Holds and cast down to be trampled under foot To exasperate Magistrates against them Is it to our Honour to put on the Magistrates Spurs Is Whispering and Backbiting a Grace in us Are Invectives Sermons I do not marvel that some Men do not pray before their Sermons when I consider what their Sermons have been but do much more marvel that after their Sermons they have repeated an excellent Prayer out of the Common-Prayer That the Word might sink into our Hearts c. There are two Things which are taken exceeding ill from you by conforming Gentlemen and Members of our Church Your medling with State-Affairs in the Pulpit and your exciting the Magistrates to prosecute Protestants by which you do not save your selves nor gain others Have not some of you driven away and lost your own Auditors by your Invectives against Protestant Nonconformists of longer standing in the Church of Christ and that have gone through those Trials and stood fast which you have not felt as yet and whom you ought to honour as Fathers and Brethren It can never be a comfortable Day to you if you lived to see them all used as you would have them used How unworthy a thing is it in a Minister to go next way to a Magistrate and inform and incense him against your Brethren so you should esteem them for a private Discourse which had nothing of Danger but some pleasantness in it Some have been sensible of this afterwards and ashamed How zealous an Act is it in a Minister to importune a Magistrate time after time to drive Minister out of his own Family out of a Town or into a Prison Must that Man be clear in his own Soul that cannot abide the Neighbourhood of a Nonconformist because he thinks himself condemned by his Resolution and Constancy Whether was the more Christian Act and Temper to molest a Nonconformist living or to beg his Pardon dying for an unfriendly uncharitable perfidious Carriage How uncomfortable is it for a Minister to disturb and procure the Punishment of a few dissatisfied Persons by which they are cut off