Crime and Separation from the Communion of the Establish'd Church must be a with-drawing from the Synagogue of Satan If any Church-man shall presume to set forth the heinousness of this Sin or make so bold as to charge Dissenters with it they are taught to call it Railing and instead of reforming the Evil in their own Persons must agree together to run down the Preacher this is too well known in experience to need any proof for none ever reproved this Sin in them but they said he Railed and though it be Zeal and Duty in them to inveigh against the Faults of others yet 't is Malignity of Spirit and Hatred of the Power of Godliness to lay open their Miscarriages But are these Men all this while free from the guilt of this Sin which they are so unwilling to hear of No notoriously guilty of it for a causeless Separation from a true Church is by the Confession of their own Teachers acknowledged to be the Sin of Schism as they often declared in their Arguings against the Brownists of old and the Sectaries of later Days Now the Wisest of them generally own the Church of England to be a True Church and none of them with all their skill have ever shew'd any just cause for Separation from it and therefore breaking from the Worship and Communion of it cannot possibly be excused from Schism How then comes it to pass that their Teachers conceal this from them and not only suffer this guilt to lie upon them but lead and encourage them too in that evil which themselves condemn in others Why the plain Reason is to preserve and uphold the Party for should the People once know the nature and danger of Schism and be sensible how guilty they are of it the Dissenting Cause will fall to the ground and the whole business of the Conventicle be soon at an end and therefore to prevent that the People must be kept in ignorance of their Duty lest they should return to it and not be permitted to know the evil of Separation lest they should turn from it So that Ignorance too is the Mother of these Mens Devotion and they who speak so much of their great Light are merely led on and kept in Darkness But by what Arts do these Men thus hoodwink and blind the Eyes of the People Why To hinder them from the knowledge of Schism they keep them as much as possible from hearing any Discourses of it they permit them not to Read those Books that would discover to them the Evil of it If they hear of any Book written to that purpose or find it put into the hands of any of their Followers they caution them against it as a dangerous Piece and tending to subvert the Power of Godliness Thus do they keep their Followers in Ignorance by the same methods the Romish Priests do theirs If any of their Teachers publish any thing though never so mean to hide the Schism and harden their Followers in it they send it about in Triumph Posting in up like Quack Bills in Market-places and other places of resort thereby spreading it among the deluded Vulgar who are apt to magnifie the Performance to lessen the Sin But if notwithstanding their endeavours the Eyes of any begin to open and they come to see the Error of their ways great care is taken to put out that Light and to stifle such Convictions If by any means they smell out the danger of Schism they make them believe it to be only a Theological Scare-Crow whereby Men in Power would enforce their own Dictates But is breaking the Peace and Unity of the Church a mere Scare-Crow Is the dividing of Christ himself and rending in sunder the Communion of Saints which is the nature of Schism only a Bugbear to fright Fools and Children Certainly they can be no living Members of Christ's Body who are so insensible of these Convulsions But they tell them farther That the Papists charge us with the same guilt and brand us as much for Schismaticks as we do them But Is there the same reason Have not the Terms of their Communion been plainly proved to be Sinful and such as we cannot safely join in And hath this been ever proved of ours Nay Do not themselves own the contrary by their Occasional Communion with us And I hope there is some Difference between a voluntary departing from the Church and being driven from it But to keep them in their Schism they add That the Terms of Communion should be only Scriptural and Unexceptionable whereas Ours are Doubtful and such against which many have great Scruples and Exceptions But is there any thing how wisely soever order'd against which weak and wilful Persons may not entertain some Scruples May not cunning and designing Men raise a mist before the Eyes of the People and keep them from discerning the clearest Truths And must such artificial Doubts justle out a plain and necessary Duty I hope the Wisdom of Superiors may direct and over-rule in case of Doubts and their Authority may carry weight enough to weigh down such Scruples When they are beaten out of these Subterfuges they tell the People That Schism is a falling off from the Communion of the Catholick Church not of This or That particular Church so that they may continue Members of Christ's Church in general though they divide from the National or parish-Parish-Church where they live But is there any Communicating with the Catholick Church without being in Communion with some particular Church Can a Member belong to the Body that is not joined to any part of it No more can any be a Member of Christ's Body that is divided from that part of it where he lives So that if the Church of England be a sound Part of the Catholick Church as is generally owned by all sober Dissenters we cannot divide from it without dividing from the Whole and separating from the Catholick Church of Christ But farther to palliate and propagate their Schism they tell them That 't is no unjust Separation till it proceed so far as to deny the Faith and whilst they keep the Christian Faith they cannot justly be charged with Schism But is there no difference beteween Apostacy and Schism Is it not one thing to deny the Faith and another to forsake the Communion of the Church May not some be pretty sound and tenacious too of the Christian Faith and so be neither Hereticks nor Apostates who yet may Separate from the Worship and Communion of the Church and so be justly branded for Schismaticks Do not all the ancient Fathers in their Disputes with the Hereticks carefully distinguish between these Two May we not see some breaking the Unity and Communion of the Church who yet do not renounce there Creed or deny the Articles of the Christian Faith The confounding these Two hath not only confounded their Notions but brought great Confusion into the Church And yet at other times they would
all Christians as the Bane and Pest of any Church and Kingdom And now I think this Artifice is pretty well detected and a vulgar Eye may plainly see the evil and danger of it for if heaping up different Teachers be not a breach of Unity and drawing Men from an Established Church be not causing Divisions I know not what is Does not the Apostle blame the divided dialect of the Corinthians when one said I am of Paul another I am of Apollo and another I am of Cephas c. though they proceeded not so far as to break Communion And if the bare crying up different Teachers in the same Church be there branded for Schism How much wider must the breach be when they withdraw from the Communion of it and set up separate Meetings and different ways of Worship in opposition to it This is plainly the case of our Dissenters and if St. Paul rebuk'd those lesser Schisms and Divisions of preferring some Teachers before others within in the Church as signs of Carnality and degrees of Apostacy how much greater must the fault be to make a Schism from the Church by dividing from the Worship and Communion of it Neither is the danger hereof less apparent than the Sin for this hath a pernicious influence not only on the persons thus seduced from it who are thereby rent and torn from the Body of Christ and harden'd in a dangerous and deadly Schism but on the whole Church whose Peace and Unity is thereby broken and being depriv'd of many of its Members is thereby weaken'd and laid open to the Assaults of its greatest Enemies These and many more are the sad effects of this Device and must be charg'd on those Craftsmen who talk much of Peace and Unity the better to supplant both and declaim against Divisions merely to promote and propagate them I am SIR Yours A. B. LETTER VI. SIR I Shew'd in my last the Craft of Dissenters in crying up Unity and decrying Divisions and how by that means they cunningly destroy the one and promote the other I proceed now to a Fifth Artifice of theirs to support their Schism and that is Their Censuring the Lives and Actions of those within the Church the better to commend theirs who Dissent from it And herein again they are the followers of the Pharisees a great part of whose Religion consisted in Censuring the Lives and Scorning the Persons of other Men. Our Saviour hath observed of them Matt. 7.3 that they were sharp and quick in espying a mote in their brother's eye when they could not discern a beam in their own They beheld the faults of others in a magnifying Glass which made them aggravate all their failings when all the while they could see nothing amiss in themselves and easily overlook'd their own Enormites A Learned Author hath observ'd of them That they had an Eye upon every Man's Life except their own and mightily concern'd themselves in others Behaviour they had a reproof for every Man's faults great or small but were still very favourable and indulgent to themselves And herein they are exactly imitated if not outdone by our Dissenters who delight in nothing more than censuring the Lives and condemning the Actions of other Men Is there any thing more obvious than this in all their Discourse and Conversation With what pleasure do they insist upon and aggravate other Mens failings Hurting their Neighbours Credit sometimes by open Calumnies which is the Arrow that flies by day and sometimes by secret Whispers which is the Pestilence that walketh in darkness and wounds without being seen How freely shall you hear them taxing the Actions and talking of the Miscarriages of other Folk How eloquent are they wont to be upon this Subject With what heat and concern With what seeming zeal and warmth does this reviling Language drop from them Yea Do they not place a great part of their Religion in censuring the Wickedness of the times crying out upon the Badness of Mens Lives and shaking their Empty Heads at the Naughtiness of their Ways Now you must not think that these bolts are shot at Them or that any of the Party are to be reckoned in the number of these Wicked ones no they are those Righteous Souls in Sodom who are vexed with the filthy Conversation of the Wicked and for whose sake the rest are spared 'T is the Churchmen and they that follow the Common-Prayer that are guilty of all these Enormities We find one of them telling us in Print That they who like this kind of Worship are generally Ignorant Prophane Superstitious Time-servers Fearful Unbelievers Haters of those that are Good Drunkards Adulterers c. Well said thou Accuser of the Brethren throw Dirt enough and to be sure some will stick In another place he adds That they are generally Persons much estranged from the Life of God and little acquainted with the Power of Godliness Alas Good Man he is griev'd at the heart to see the deadness and formality of such Worshippers Another of these Godly Brethren tells us That the Bishops are an Earthly Generation and savour not the things of God and that there is more of God and Religion in some one Congregation of a Silenc'd Minister than in all the Bishops Families in England Are not these Charitable and Clean-mouth'd Souls Or rather are not their Tongues set on Fire of Hell But what is the Design of all these rude Censures and Calumnies Why to draw the People from the Established Church and to persuade them to come out from such an unsanctified Crew and withal to invite them to the Conventicle where they will find better Company and join with the Assembly of the Saints How serviceable this Stratagem hath been to increase and keep up the Party is obvious to observe For This gratifies the natural Pride and Ambition of Mens Hearts who are willing to be thought better than other Men and are easily persuaded to hearken to and believe those that tell them so Again This gratifies the Spleen and Animosity that some have against their Neighbours thus to vent their malice in Censures and evil Reflections on their Life and Manners a Religion that allows and commends these things must be very grateful to Flesh and Blood and cannot want many Followers Moreover This cherishes in Men a mighty love and conceit of themselves making them think that they hate and abhor those sins themselves which they thus Censure and Condemn in others Besides all Men desire an easy Religion and would willingly go to Heaven the nearest and softest way that may be now what can be more easy than to Saint themselves by defaming others And who would not embrace a Religion that will indulge Men in their Vices if they do but declaim against them and censure them in other People Yea 't is a pleasing and delightful thing to some Persons to find faults in other Men for it gives a seeming satisfaction in their own innocence or at least
this is to preserve and propagate the Schism is very easy to imagine Again By this device the Dissenters can shift off all the blame of the Divisions from themselves and lay them at others doors which is indeed a great piece of Art and stands them in good stead for if they are charged with the danger and evil consequents of our unchristian Divisions and Separations they presently throw off all the guilt of them from themselves and lay it upon the Impositions they good men are in no fault but they who have made the yoke of Conformity intolerable by laying too much upon the backs of their weak Brethren and making the Burthen too heavy for their tender Consciences to bear by this Artifice they seek cunningly to discharge themselves of all the troubles and commotions in these Kingdoms which they put not upon their own stubbornness and disobedience to good Laws which is the true cause of them but upon their Governors for Imposing upon them and making the yoke of Government too heavy and hard to be born But what are those Laws which they fix this odious brand upon and call by the nick-name of Impositions Why they are the good Orders and Constitutions of the Church appointed only for the external Reverence and Decency of Divine Worship 't is the Liturgy and Discipline of the Church that must go under this infamous Character to keep their Followers from all due Submission and Obedience to them And as the first Enemies of Christianity arrayed the ancient Christians in Bear-Skins and Goat-Skins that they might be the more worried and baited by the Multitude so have the Architects of Schism put this vile Title on wholesome Orders to make them the more hated and abhorred by the People Hence we read That when King Charles the First out of a Pious Zeal for the Unity and Uniformity of all the Churches in his Dominions Ordered a Liturgy to be Composed and Used in the Church of Scotland which was no more than hath been practised in all Christian Churches and well enough became a Christian Prince to do What loud out-cries against Impositions were raised by some Turbulent and Factious Spirits in that Kingdom Who thereupon brake out in an unnatural War and Rebellion against their Lawfull Sovereign yea and had the Impudence too to charge all that Blood upon that Pious Prince which was wickedly shed by those Impious Traytors By which we plainly see the mischief of this Device And though abundantly enough hath been written by our own and Foreign Divines to take off this false Imputation yet the cry must still go on to continue and propagate the Schism But what is it that makes the Burthen of Impositions as they call them so heavy Why First 'T is the giving of Assent and Consent to all that is contain'd in and prescrib'd by the Book of Common-Prayer This they are continually buzzing in the Ears of the People though they are no way concern'd in it and so fright them from the Communion of the Church by their feigned and imaginary Scare-Crows for this is no where required of them and consequently there can be no reason of frighting them with this Bugbear but only to keep them from the publick Worship The Minister indeed who is to offer up the publick Prayers of the Church is required to give his Assent to them And can any thing be more reasonable than that he that is called to this Office should be satisfied in the Soundness of the publick Devotion Is it fit that any should Officiate this way who doubts of the Truth or Usefulness of the publick Service Must not this occasion great Coldness and Hypocrisie in the Worship of God If they think the serving of God by the Common-Prayer be a Service pleasing unto him Why can they not Assent and Consent to it If they do not How can they be fit to Officiate or indeed at any time to join in the Use of it So that this if well considered will be found rather a needless Cavil than a just Exception against the prescribed Worship But 2dly The Imposing This and no Other adds to the weight of the Impositions and makes the Burthen too heavy How so Is not a standing Liturgy containing all the Offices of Religion sufficient to all the ends of Piety and Devotion Are not Peace Unity and Order best preserved by one Uniform Established way of Worship Are Men imposed upon unless they are left free to what way of Worship they please which necessarily breeds Confusion and every Evil work Of this our own sad Experience may abundantly fatisfy us and withall plainly shew the fallacy of this Artifice Now the mischief of this Device is too visible both in Church and State for the crying out upon Impositions and branding good Laws with that odious Name hath kept many from all Obedience to them In short this hath bred a contempt of Authority and involv'd whole Kingdoms in Blood and Confusion But there is another branch of this Artifice and that is The stiling the just Penalties of wholsom Laws by the hareful Name of Persecution This is a plain consequent of the former for when Men think themselves imposed upon by publick Orders and Constitutions they will soon think themselves Persecuted when they are Punished for the breach of them hence we find the Dissenters often setting up the cry of Persecution by which they would have their Governors to be thought Tyrants and themselves the Saints that suffer under them yea they compare their Condition to that of the Primitive Christians and would make the World believe that when they are punished for the breach of Unity Peace and Order they are as much persecuted as those first Christians in all their Sufferings for the Truth of Christianity But this Artifice being already fully detected I shall add no more here but refer you to it I am SIR Yours A. B. LETTER VIII SIR YOU see the Mischief of calling things by wrong Names as stiling publick Laws by the Name of Impositions and the Penalties annex'd to the Breach of them by the Name of Persecution which hath made many too careless of the one and fearless of the other I come now to A Seventh Artifice of Dissenters and that is to keep the People in Ignorance of the Nature and Danger of Schism or else to feed them with wrong Notions and Conceits of it Indeed the Romish Priests are not more studious to conceal the Corruptions of their Church than these Men are to disguise the Errors of the Conventicle This is evident in the Matter of Schism for though it be one of the greatest Sins that can be committed being a tearing in pieces the Body of Christ and as far exceeds any other Vice as rending one Limb from another is worse than a Corrupt Humour yet the People must not know so much the guilt of it must be hid from their Eyes yea it must be look'd on rather as a Duty than a
Which should make the common People more aware of these Craftsmen and take heed how they trust themselves in such hands 2ly Another Branch of this Artifice is to work upon the Wilfulness of the People and to make use of their Headiness as well as Ignorance to confirm them in their Schism If you observe it there are many among the Vulgar who though weak and ignorant enough God knows are yet very wilful and obstinate they are too wise to learn and too stiff to stoop to the Wisdom of their Betters such as these the Dissenters work upon knowing if they can but get them into their Sect they have them fast enough their own Pride and Obstinancy will hinder their return and harden them against all Conviction hence the Leaders of the Schism are buisy to infuse Prejudices into them against the Established Worship and Discipline and to instil wrong Notions of both knowing if they are once entertain'd they are fixed there and 't will be hard to remove them and therefore they endeavour to heat the Heads of such Persons with a false Zeal and that will harden their Hearts and seal up their Ears against Instruction If these Artists can but draw the Vulgar into an admiration of their Persons or Parts they then attain their ends and can lead them where they please their Errors then shall pass for Oracles whatever drops from them must be as true as the Gospel and all their Dictates as uncontroulable as those of the Infallible Chair Now the Mischief hereof is too open and visible to need any Discovery for Pertinaciae nullum dedit remedium Deus Obstinacy is a Disease of the Mind for which there is no Cure for it rejects the Use of all good Means and renders the Case of such as fall into it desperate and remediless he that is obstinately addicted to an Error wilfully shuts his Eyes against the Light and such a one must necessarily walk on in darkness till he fall into the deep Abyss of black and eternal Darkness which should teach all Men to beware of such Leaders as thus darken the Minds and harden the Hearts of their Followers and by both lead them on to the Gulph of Destruction This will be the Fate of such as receive not the Truth in the Love of it but are led on to believe a Lie and carried away with strong Delusions But there is 3dly Another Branch of this Artifice and that is Their working upon the Discontents of People to draw them into the Schism There are too many in the World of such peevish and perverse Tempers that they take pet upon any slight occasion and like Tinder catch fire at every spark One Man has not the Honour he would have another hath missed such a Place or Preferment he expected a third hath received some injury or Affront from his Neighbour and all these are put out of Humour and grown Discontented One Man's Greatness is an Eye-sore to another some body or other hath anger'd such a Cholerick Man and he must be reveng'd But the Misery is they all seek their revenge upon the Government if any thing hath disgusted them in the publick Administration of Affairs they presently make it an occasion of Separation and whatever happens amiss in the State makes them quarrel and fall out with the Church Now these Waspish and Cholerick Persons of which the World affords but too many are another sort of Men which our Dissenters mainly work on lending an Ear to their Complaints and improving their Discontents into Separation they flatter them in the Justice of what they complain of saying What pity it is that such good Men should not be employed in the Government and crying shame that such Worthy Persons should be neglected and when by this means they have inclined and prepared them for the Faction they declare their readiness to embrace them and at their coming with open arms receive them into it Thus is their Religion owing to the Ill Nature of the one and the Subtilty of the other and the Profession of it in both made use of to Countenance what it plainly forbids Now how serviceable this Stratagem is to encrease the Party is easie to observe for hereby great Numbers are drawn and invited into the Schism and all ignorant wilful and discontented Persons run into the Faction as into a Common Sewer if any become a Malecontent or Disaffected in the State he shall soon be encouraged to be so in the Church and his Religion shall receive a Tincture from the Bitterness of his Spleen If any hath Falsified in his Tythes or been Sued for them he leaves his Minister and away to the Separate Meeting where he is entertained with the pleasing Ditty Why should the Parson have One in Ten And if he will not depend upon the Good-will and Contributions of the Hearers 't is pity he should have any thing If a Woman hath proved Unfaithful or Undutiful to her Husband and thereby occasioned any just Offence in the Family away she goes to the Conventicle where she is received as a Saint and the blame laid upon the innocent Husband at home In a word If any for their Ill Behaviour in the Church be justly Excommunicated or turn'd out of it they presently betake themselves to the Conventicle where they who were rejected as great Sinners in the one are received as great Saints in the other Thus is the Conventicle the Sink of the Church where the Refuse and Off-scouring of the one runs and empties it self into the other Now is not this a vile and dangerous Stratagem that leaves such an out-let and encouragement to all manner of Vice Must not this take away all the terror of Discipline and Church-Censures to have such an easie way to be rid of the Fear and Trouble of both What Check or Restraint can be put upon Immorality and Vice when there is such an artificial Method of evading the Shame and Punishment of them This is a Matter well worthy of the Consideration of Superiors to stop this out-let of Impiety and to shut the door that opens to so much Atheism and Confusion I am SIR Yours A. B. LETTER XII SIR ANother Artifice of Dissenters to uphold their Schism is a Pretence to Christian Liberty And herein they tread exactly in the very steps of the Papists who call for Liberty though themselves will give none yea they herein not only follow the steps but act the part and promote the very Designs of the Papists For did not the Roman Catholicks struggle hard for this Liberty merely to bring about their own ends And is it not well known how the Dissenters joined with them in their Endeavours of taking off the Penal Laws and Test which would have undermined the Reformation and established Popery But what is that Christian Liberty these Men pretend to and call so loudly for Why 't is a Freedom from the Observation of all Laws about Indifferent things in the
Followers from all Subjection to them So rarely do they Expound their Christian Liberty which they make use of as a pretence to shake off the Yoke and evade all Obedience to Government Yea they enlarge this Liberty so far as to think themselves obliged not to do what is Commanded and likewise to do what is Forbidden in the Defence of it So that if the Magistrate should forbid what he would have done and command what he would not these Men would be caught in their own Snare and be oblig'd by their own Principles to do as he would have them And yet they stile this humoursome and cross-grain'd sort of Liberty a Privilege purchased for them by Jesus Christ and a Depositum committed to the Care and Keeping of the Christian Church as if Christ had given them a Dispensation from Observing all good Order and let them loose to all Disobedience Whereas such a Privilege is so far from being worth the purchasing that 't is much better to be without it for this would be an Engine of perpetual Discord and Confusion the Mischief whereof both to Church and Kingdom is too visible to need laying open But did these Men who talk so much of Christian Liberty allow that Liberty to others when they were in Power which they now claim to themselves No quite otherwise none were ever more rigid Imposers and more notorious Infringers of Christian Liberty than they 't is well known that they pressed the Covenant upon Mens Consciences with far greater rigor than any ever did Conformity yea those very Men that alledg'd Christian Liberty against Conforming to the Orders of the Church Compell'd others to take the Covenant with Pike and Pistol threatning Loss of Life Goods and Lands on such as refused it I suppose you have heard with how severe and intolerable Penalties they Prohibited the Common-Prayer and with what merciless rigor they were executed on those that used it When some put in their own Plea of Christian Liberty for a little Mitigation they were answered 'T was no Impeachment of Christian Liberty to wear those Golden Chains about their Necks And when they had laid the most intolerable Bonds and Burthens upon Mens Consciences they told them that 't was Prophaneness and Rebellion to say Let us breake their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us We find one of them commending the Parliament for endeavouring to fence the Vineyard with a setled Militia to gather out the Malignants as Stones and to make a Wine-press in it for the squeezing of Delinquents But what shall we say of that barbarous Infringement of Christian Liberty in pressing the Directory upon the Conscience of their Sovereign King Charles the First which they knew was against it they denied him the use of the Liturgy though he earnestly desired it yea they would not allow him to use any other set Form of Prayer in his own House though he declared it against his Conscience to join in a way of Worship where it was wholly uncertain what the Minister would say to God hoping as he told them that they would not offer Violence to the Conscience of their Sovereign yea they denied him the Attendance of his own Chaplains to direct and comfort him in his Troubles A piece of Rigor and Barbarity as himself stiles it greater than is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or greatest Malefactors So that this Pretence to Christian Liberty is a Device made use of to serve their own turn and to be deny'd to all others which plainly shews the Fallacy and Falshood of it I am SIR Yours A. B. LETTER XIII SIR ANother Artifice of Dissenters to keep up their Schism is a pretence to better means of Edification this is a Device-occasioned by the Ignorance of the People and cherished in them by the Subtilty of their Teachers They cannot Edifie they tell us so well in the Church as in the Conventicle and they Profit more by the Sermons of the one than they can by the other This is a plausible and popular Plea for Separation and hath help'd much to increase the Party for it carries a fair shew of Zeal and Care for their Souls to look out for the best means of Edification none they think can blame them if they hear those Sermons by which they Profit most and follow those Teachers that best promote their Eternal Welfare But let us examine what Truth there is in this Pretence to this end we must enquire What it is to Profit by Sermons And who are the most Edifying Preachers Because there are great and dangerous Mistakes in both To Edify then or Profit by Sermons is First To have our Judgments well inform'd in the Knowledge of God and the Mysteries of the Gospel And 2ly To lead our lives according to it so that they who most truly and plainly Expound the Holy Scriptures and best apply them to all the ends and purposes of a Holy Life are indeed the most Edifying Teachers and they who most grow in Grace and the sound Knowlege of God and abound most in all the Acts of Virtue and a Good Life are most Edified by the Prayers and Discourses they hear and are the best Proficients in Christ's School Now there is no Church in the Christian World that affords better means of Edification to all these purposes than that whereof we are Members For there the Word of God is faithfully Preach'd and Expounded by which we may be throughly Instructed in all Divine and Sacred Knowledge There all the Articles of the Creed containing all that is necessary to be Believ'd are plainly and practically unfolded to us by which we may be built up in our most Holy Faith There we have the Lord's Prayer the most perfect of all Prayers together with other excellent and well-order'd Prayers composed by it daily sounding in our Ears by which we are directed in all our Addresses unto God to offer up a Pious Sober and Well-compos'd Devotion There again we hear the Ten Commandments frequently Read and Explain'd to us in the full latitude both of the Precepts and Prohibitions contain'd in them by which we may learn how to walk in the Whole course of our lives so as to Please God and Profit our selves In a word there is no Duty incumbent on us either with relation to God our Neighbour or our selves but what is clearly opened and by the most proper and pressing Motives exhorted to And there is no Sin or Transgression against either but what we are by the most convincing Arguments dehorted from in the publick Assemblies of the Established Church Whereas in the Separate Meetings of Sectaries the Holy Scriptures are very badly Expounded and too often very sadly Perverted The fore-mentioned excellent Models and Abridgments of the Christian Religion I mean the Creed the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments are seldom or never rehearsed in the Ears of the People by which neglect