by Raising the Dead or else speaking those as St. Peter did who this moment are in a compleat state of Health into death immediately God forbid they should be invested with such a power for I believe we should have but very few Bishops left alive amongst us then Can they alter the Course of Nature and change the essential Property of any thing and do great cures even by opposite and contrary Means as our Saviour did No alas when we make a just enquiry into their abilities we find the men maugre all their boastings are but like unto us and all this confidence in particularizing the Grounds and Reasons of Gods Judgments is founded in pride and Self-conceit in an overweening value they have for themselves and an implacable hatred they have entertained against the Church of England And though the Principles of Separation have been the Instruments of as dreadful Effects to this Nation and wrought as great Confusions as History almost can parallel yet so vain are many of these Men that there cannot be a Storm or a Tempest that there cannot happen the least Ruffle or Disorder upon Nature but presently it is to give intimation of the wrongs and oppressions they are under and to warn both the King and Bishops to treat them more gently for the time to come And by this means the easy people are emboldened to very vile thoughts of the Government and to any mischievous undertaking that tends to its Ruine for who would not willingly be ridd of a Constitution or of a Number of such Men as are so great eye-fores to God himself that the very sight of them is continually provoking him to work great Desolations in the earth 2. I ask these men whether we as obedient Churchmen have not as much right to make use of this Argument against them as they against us truly I think it will be no easy matter to disprove it Nay considering that earthly Government is a dim and obscure Representation of that excellent Order and Harmony that is in Heaven and that Magistrates are Gods Vicegerents and his immediate Stewards on Earth I think that those who live in Obedience to them upon a satisfaction thâ— things they command are not unlawful may pretend to as great nay greater kindness from God than these men can do and consequently be better enabled by him to expound Judgments than they are And now upon this account suppose should tell them that the Plague and the Fire was for the murdering one King and Banishing the other was for laying violent hands upon the Ancient and Primitive Order of Episcopacy and turning the Aged and Reverend Prelates out of their Estates as well as Liberties suppose further we should tell them that the continuance of Gods anger is for their adherence still to those Principles notwithstanding we have in these late years seen issue from them such horrid Distractions and Animosities such unnatural Quarrels betwixt Neighbours and Neighbours nay betwixt some Parents and Children I say suppose we should tell them this and much more why would they not pronounce us monstrously uncharitable and presuming upon a greater information from Heaven than we have any warrant to do from Scripture but why the Pride and Uncharitableness should lye altogether on our side I profess I cannot tell unless they can demonstrate their Right as I said before to comment upon all the visible Expressions of Gods Anger by working some unquestionable Miracles before our Eyes 3. I ask these great pretended Acquaintances of Heaven whether it be not a Sign of great Hypocrisie and unsoundness of Mind to prevent and hinder the influence of any Argument or Consideration whereby God designs to lay mens Pride in the dust and to work them into that state of Humiliation and Self-abasement which becomes all men in this frail and imperfect State For certainly 't is the proper character of a good and an honest Christian who takes up his Religion upon Gospel-Motives that he is one that will make use of all Ways and Methods to work his mind up to such a Temper as God requires from him and therefore this good Man if at any time God suffer great ruines to overtake the World why he knows he cannot better and more suitably comport himself than by being humbled under his Anger than by reflecting upon himself with that severity of mind that becomes any man who hath had an hand in such provocations but now for a Man or a Body of Men to impute these Judgments to others and to shift them from themselves it is to abate the force of that Argument that may be fetched from Gods present heavy Dispensations and as persons unconcerned to leave all those ways of Humiliation prescribed in Scripture to be undertaken and done by others for as for themselves they can wash their hands they are pure and clean than which there cannot be a greater instance of Pride and Vanity of an unsound and a very corrupted Mind And therefore if by these Questions I can but bring these great opiniators to a perswasion that Gods Judgments are sent forth to punish and terrifie men of all Opinions and Judgments whatsoever from a sinful course of Life and that when he appears with his Sword in his hand every man ought to smite upon his Breast and say What have I done I think I shall do both Religion and themselves a very great Right 2. This Church suffers very much by the Jealousie of many of the Gentry especially those who have swallowed down the Principles of Mr. Hobbs lest the Clergy should overtop them or at least encroach too much upon their Power and influence in those Countreys where they live Many of them I say for God forbid I should impeach all or most of them for certainly there is no spot of Ground in the Christian world where there are better bred Gentlemen than in this famous Island who understand respect and kindness to all sorts of Persons in proportion to those several places and conditions they are fixed in and who have a particular esteem for the Clergy both upon the score of the Dignity of their Function and their just opinion of those Degrees the University for a compensation of those improvements they have made in several Arts and Sciences have deservedly conferred upon them And I must needs say this further that I have met with very few Branches of the Ancient Gentry upon whom Civility and Modesty have been entailed from many preceeding Generations or in my present Neighbourhood that have not been very punctualand zealous in keeping up the Reputation of the Ministery both by their own personal carriage to them and their readiness to secure them from the assaults and rudeness of the untutored Rabble But however we cannot expect but in great flocks there should be some diseased Sheep and even amongst those who either have or ought to have had better Education we must expect to meet with some who want that
it nor by its genuine and proper influënces upon the minds of men where it is heartily received but by the actions of a great number of men in the World he must needs enter his protest against it and judge it as an Engine framed and made for nothing else but to serve turns and cheat the World and upon serious and impartial reflections upon things we shall find from hence have proceeded many mens odd conceits of this excellent thing called Religion For casting their eyes abroad and observing how common a thing it is for men to shift their Principles when their Interest lyes at stake and those too such men as are in vogue among the people for the most precious Saints why alas prompted by their lusts and seduced by Satan they have first questioned whether there be any such thing in reality and truth as Religion yea or no and then by degrees have laughed at it as the product either of knavery or melancholy And I wish our Brethren of the separation could wash their hands of the ruine that hath befaln Religion upon this account 'T is true no men more ready to complain of the present degeneracy of the age than they and so far as those complaints are the effects of sorrow for sin and not of design to misrepresent the Government so far they do well and are to be commended but I do heartily advise them to look from whence this degeneracy proceeds Was sin so bold-faced and notorious impieties so confident and open before these complainants invaded the Churches Rites and slackned the Reins of Government by which the heady multitude were kept in some good awe and order I desire them heartily to read the History of the times from the Reformation to the beginning of the late dreadful War and to tell me whether from the highest to the lowest there were such numbers of men that scoffed at Religion and lived in a neglect of all those Offices which are appointed for men to keep an intercourse with Heaven and a sense of a Divine Being upon their Souls No if they will be impartial they must needs confess that Religion met with better entertainment both in Churches and in Families than now it does And therefore whence must we fetch this strange Apostasie this horrid contempt of things that were handled with more reverence even among the Heathens who are only conducted by the glimmering Light of Nature Why in short one great Reason of it hath been these mens inconsistency with themselves and changing their principles upon every change of affairs At first many of them were modest and a regulation of some things in the Government as it then stood established was a blessing that would make the Nation happy but afterwards when a little success put a greater power into their hands why then the ancient Government of the Church must be stubb'd up both root and branch and forsooth we must have another Model founded in a Divine Right and nothing less than Scripture and Apostolical Example must patronize it and then the Kingdom of God was come down amongst us and Babylon was faln and the Beast smitten through the fifth rib But alas within a few years I had almost said moneths many of those who had cryed up the new Discipline and Covenant as the pattern in the Mount as the greatest bulwark against Romish incursions went away from it and by the help of a sorry distinction were found very busie in overthrowing all National Churches and now nothing must be Gospel Worship but what was after the Independent cut And 't is very well known what skirmishes there were betwixt the Presbiterians and Independents for their several Platforms what petitioning on one side for liberty of Conscience and what on the other against it with I know not how many Reasons tendered to the High Court of Parliament and yet after all this no sooner was the King come in and the Ecclesiastical Laws revived and many persons formerly unjustly thrown out restored to their properties and free-hold again but those very men who had with full cry and open mouth pursued the Congregational men proclaimed them Schismaticks and great enemies to the work of Reformation that was then upon the wheel I say those men contrary to their formerly avowed principles Declarations Remonstrances and Petitions Prayers and Preachments fall in with the same practises and gather Churches out of Churches And nothing is more frequent now than to meet with Books dedicated to the Flock of such a man and to the Congregation over whom such a man is overseer when God knows it may be those people that make up the body of these Flocks live in all the quarters and corners of the town and countrey Now whether this be adherence to principles or bespeak a man fixed and well grounded I leave any man to judge No no it looks like a design and as far as actions can speak it tells the world that 't is not Religion about which all this stir is made but Pride and Interest And now pray let us consider what judgment can some men make of Religion if they have no better conveyance of its worth into them than such Examples and Instances as these are Alas it makes them throw dirt in its face and to cry it down as a thing not worthy of that care that it hath met withal from several Laws and they are apt to conclude that were it grounded in any Reason or had any Demonstration on its side certainly men of education and generous breeding would not be so long before they understand it and after they seem to understand it so fickle and uncertain in their Notions of it And truly I think this is no small cause of our present Atheism and I wish with all my heart our Brethren would lay it close to heart and when they complain of the Iniquities of the times either publickly or privately amend at the same time that which hath been so great an occasion of it 2. Atheism makes room for it self by those unjust and wicked actions committed by men who pretend to more than ordinary sanctity What must some men think of Religion especially such as have met with a careless education who have not had their natural notions of Religion strengthened by wholsome documents and good Examples what I say must these men think of Religion when they behold a violent stickler for the Rights of the Lord Jesus as he pretends lift up his eyes to heaven and then thrust his hand into his Neighbours pocket when they hear him profess himself ready to deny himself of any thing though never so profitable or pleasurable provided the cause of God may flourish and at the same time busie in signing Orders for sequestring other mens Estates and turning their Wives and Children out of doors without any consideration of sex or age when they see him riding from place to place to help to settle Religion and at the same time
agreeable to the Laws of Societies and Bodies Politick let the Doctrines they are made acquainted with be such as make for peace and order and you shall find no men more tractable nor yet more zealous And upon this very score I have often wished that all those persons who are suffered to discourse to Multitudes were men of prudence and orderly complyance with the Laws under which we live we might I am sure then hope for a longer continuance of happiness and prosperity in the Nation than we can if some men enjoy the liberty which contrary to so many Statute Laws they have usurped expect And now that which I infer from this reflection is this That if such short provision for men of worth and education has been the occasion of the State and Churches ruine once already who can tell but it may be of as evil consequence again And therefore I think the whole Nation ows thanks to our present Parliament for their late readiness to remedy this evil by considering some further kindness to the Clergy than was shown at the first alienation of Church Revenues And I will once be so bold as to say that it had been never the worse for the Crown of England considering what Spirits have rose up since that great purge Henry the Eighth gave the Church had all those Impropriations that were found annexed to Monasteries and Abbyes been given to the countenancing and supporting a learned and orthodox Clergy in all the corners of the Kingdom Nay I will venture further and assert Had this been done the late unparallel'd Prince if the golden Sands of his life in their natural course would have run so long as to this time as in all probability they would if conjectures may be made from the strength and soundness of all his vital parts which was apparent after his cruel Murther I say that he might still have lived happily amongst us untouched by the rude hands of violence and this I think may be made out by such a necessary train of consequences as cannot easily be denyed But this is not all I have to say under this Head Upon enquiry we shall find further mischiefs ensuing from the poor and contemptible Incomes of men by sacred Office dedicated to the immediate Worship of God 1. A man is thereby dispirited There is we all know a certain frame and temper a certain spirit and humour that is very necessary as well as commendable and praise worthy for all those several places and conditions men are fixed in and for any one to carry himself otherways than is becoming his present circumstances especially such as suppose him clothed with any Office or separated Function why that very thing proves amongst the greatest part of Mandkind a lessening of his personal esteem and withal a reflection upon and diminution of the very office it self among those whose Judgments are altogether governed by outward representations and resemblances Now this very Humour which is better and more easily discerned in a man who is perfect Master of it than it is expressed by words is very much lost where men are forcibly marryed to narrow Fortunes where their Incomes are no ways suitable to the real as well as apprehended Dignity of those offices they are vested with and 't is impossible for a man to lift up his Head with that befitting Majesty with that necessary and withal humble greatness of spirit that hath never a peny in his purse as another of a plentiful accession of outward blessings can do to very good advantage both to his person and his Function Alas when a mans spirit is gone besides the loss he sustains in himself by neglecting all those Improvements which further hopes and expectations put him upon he sinks into disesteem amongst his Neighbours and consequently his person is despised and his Ministery neglected and people hear him with as little reverence in the Church as they admire him in his forlorn and thredbare habit in the streets And if the Church suffer by her Church officers as without dispute by their miscarriages she does then I leave the World to judge whether it be policy to let her continue stript so naked of those necessary clothes which if not adorn her yet would keep her warm 2. As this does dispirit so many times God knowes it does debauch a man which is a thing of a very pernicious consequence to our excellent Church and can only prove her ruine For as I hinted in the former part of this Discourse when we have answered all our Adversaries Arguments drawn from misinterpreted and abused places of Scripture they presently fall upon us with this reflection which though God be thanked is not so generally true as they would make the World believe yet we must not wholly deny it 't is too apparent in many publick concourses that there are some indiscreet and unwary Clergy-men And now upon inquiry we shall find the mean provisions of the Clergy have been one great reason of their declension from the exact and necessary Rules of life For these men not having wherewithal to furnish themselves with Books to enlarge their thoughts and meditations in order to allure them to solitude and retirement and it may be having a charge and not wherewithal to satisfie the cravings and necessary importunities of their distressed Families why they have first fled from their discontented selves and then it may be into company to avoid the din and clamour of their Children and when they are once engaged in evil Company they are heartily to be pityed for they are in the High way to ruine especially when thorough a little use and a few moneths custome their Fancies are taken with it alas they then like other depraved men are unsatisfied so long as they are at home and their Studies are the only rooms in the house they do not see from one week to another and so by degrees after they have worn out all those Characters of Religion which were engraven upon their minds and wasted the modesty of their Souls and forgot the Dignity of their Function alas they enter into these houses of good Fellowship with as much boldness and unconcernedness as the veryest plow-jobbers can do and so become fit for nothing but the Churches severest Censures But in the mean time does the Church thrive by this I trow not no no she presently amongst a great many heedless or malicious people must bear the burthen of it all and the crafty Sectary takes all opportunities to hand this from one place to another joyfully raising his own and his parties credit upon the ruines of other mens reputation but then 3. If Poverty does neither the one nor the other yet it commonly discontents them and so makes them Firebrands in the Government For such men as are of tolerable Learning and resolved temperance when they observe themselves neglected whilst others whom they cannot esteem equal to themselves get into fat preferments why
Spirits drop from their mouths render first God cheap and vile to standers by and then that important duty of Prayer it self nauseous and burthensome And to speak freely I know nothing hath made greater matter of sport to Atheists and hath more strengthened them in their Atheistical notions than such bold and sawcy addresses to God which some of these men for God forbid I should accuse all have been guilty of For what conceit can they have of a Being to whom men pretending so great a veneration talk so rudely as if like the Heathen Gods he were to be propitiated by fawning words and flattering titles by unmanlike whynes and distorted faces And therefore I do beseech these men who have so unhappily got such a power over the Common people into their hands as to perswade them almost to any thing to be more worthy and sincere in their instructing of them and to remember that when the illiterate and meaner sort of people are once encouraged by them to such an unlimited exercise of their gifts that they grow proud and haughty and their littleknowledg puffs them up so that within a short time they grow too wise for their Teachers and set up for themselves And here hath begun this Nations ruine and Religions bane from hence London hath become another Amsterdam and every mechanick fellow hath assumed the confidence to be a Teacher of the people And therefore I am the more Sorry that men pretending to learning and wisdom should propagate a notion so every ways new and withal of so pernicious effect and consequence and that so lately experienced too But lest by what I have said under this Head I should give any distaste to truly good and wise men I shall conclude it with the words of that incomparable and never to be forgotten person King Charles the First in which Reader 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast the full sense of my mind in this particular That though I am not against a grave and modest discreet and humble use of Ministers gifts even in publick the better to fit and excite their own and the peoples affections to the present occasion yet I know no necessity why private and single abilities should quite justle out and deprive the Church of the joynt abilities and concurrent gifts of many learned and godly men such as the composers of the Service-book were 2. The other Notion which I think very prejudicial to Christianity in the Hearts and Lives of people is that of the Spirit of bondage A very great doctrine with the Nonconformists and often in their mouths though according to their description of it I profess I can find no foot steps of it in all the New Testament and yet certainly had it been so absolutely a necessary preparative to true conversion as they make it we should have had an account both of the thing it self and withal of some signs and tokens whereby we might know when we were in it and how to get out of it of all which the Gospel is silent For that place of St. Paul wherein he says we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear relates to the Jewish O economy and is miserably perverted and wrested as many of his other sayings are when quoted to justifie these mens doctrines of the bondage state But because I know many persons will be desirous to know what this thing is I am now accusing them of I will therefore give them this brief account Instead of defining Conversion and Regeneration to be a real change of the Mind founded upon a sense and fear of God and a true love to Christ and upon a consideration of sin as an enemy to all those glorious Attributes wherewith the Divine Majesty is clothed and by which he hath manifested himself to the World and instead of engaging a man to an utter abhorrence and forsaking of all sin for the time to come and to a vigorous pursuit of all those necessary vertues and graces which make up an holy life all which words are plain and easily derived into the most ordinary understanding why these men tell you that before the work of conversion be wrought and the man thereby entitled to the favour and love of God he must be kept in a legal state and chains and fetters must be clapped upon his feet and the Law must hunt him down so that in his soul there must be a soul confounding horrour a soul distressing anguish and a soul distracting despair and God must appear to him for some time together as an angry Judge without one smile in his Countenance and take him by the hair of the head and then throw him into a disconsolate dungeon where not the least light must spring through the most minute crevise into his soul And when the man hath been by this way sufficiently humbled why then in time he shall have comfort administred to him and be brought into the green and pleasant meadows of the Gospel and a spirit within him shall enable him to cry Abba Father And all this must be preached as absolutely necessary so that some good men through such suggestions have been very much troubled at themselves as Hypocrites because they were not brought to the obedience of the Gospel by such rackings and convulsions of mind as these But now as this notion is false so it is very pernicious and hugely slackens the exercise of true godliness For how much time hath been spent by this means in grievous complaints in fearful apprehensions of God in posting from one place to another for satisfaction in inveighing against themselves as if they were the veryest monsters upon the earth which might to better purpose have been spent in those Instrumental parts of Religion to wit Prayer and Meditation c. from any of which heartily performed there naturally springs into the mind not disturbed by troublesome and clouded fancies joy and comfort so that this Bondage state rather casts a man behind-hand than any ways helps him in his religious progress Further how many persons wearied with long expectations and waitings for the comforts they are promised at last have thrown off all Religion and looked upon it and the Teachers of it to be nothing else but cheats and that such melancholy thoughts have been imposed upon them on purpose to keep them in dependence upon the insolent and pragmatical Priests And further how many people who have been under the disadvantage of a melancholy complexion have been so terrified with these unworthy and wrong thoughts of God and have been kept so long under the power of them by some spiritual Empiricks that to be rid of them they have laid violent hands upon themselves And then lastly this Doctrine is so very mechanical and the Body is so much concerned in it and the Reason and understanding of men so little that it makes way for all the Enthusiasm in the World and becomes the Mother of all those
wild fancies the World these latter days hath been too sadly acquainted withal And whether Religion get any ground by such things let any man judge or how those men deserve to be cryed up as the only spiritual Preachers who vent Doctrines so destructive to Religion I cannot tell And now Reader after I have begged thy pardon for this tedious preface though I must confess I did not design it much shorter when I first entred upon it I must tell thee that I am not alone in my high esteem for the Church of England No there are thousands in the Kingdom and those men too whose excellent and Regular lives and whose universal learning may justly be speak them a place amongst the most improved men who are ready to defend this Church with both their Tongues and Pens and of such I will only name two the one is that incomparable person Dr. Stillingfleet who in his Sermon upon Matth. 21.43 Pag. 158. calls this Church one of the best Churches in the Christian World and in the same place complains that it should puzzle the wisest of men to find out expedients to keep it from ruine The other is that excellent and no less laborious than learned Dr. Tillotson in a Sermon before the King where he tells us that he had been according to his opportunities not a negligent observer of the Genius and Humour of the several Sects and Professions in Religion and upon the whole matter that he does in his Conscience believe the Church of England to be the best constituted Church this day in the Christian World and that as to the main the Doctrine and Government and Worship of it are excellently framed to make men soberly religious securing men on the one hand from the wild freaks of Enthusiasm and on the other hand from the gross follies of superstition But if thou wilt neither believe them nor me for our bare saying so read the following discourse without prejudice and if through the strength of thy former received apprehensions thou wilt not wholly be drawn over to us yet I hope thou wilt be so far convinced as to believe that neither the Church nor her Officers and publick Dispensers are so had and obnoxious as some men through weakness and others through malice have represented them Farewell POSTSCRIPT Reader THe two first sheets of this small book were most of them preached before the Judges of Assize at Chelmsford in Essex and therefore if thou findest any thing in them as an Appeal to them I pray impute it to that Further Reader I must desire thee if thou meetest with the word why used improperly as sometimes I find upon a perusal of the sheets it is impute it to custome and a mode of speaking upon which score it dropt so unwarily from my Pen. Whatsoever other faults there are give me but the common allowance the ordinary miscarriages of a Press require and I will ask no more THE CONTENTS THE Design of the Treatise laid down 1. To prove that we of this Church have all necessary advantages for gaining eternal life 2. To enquire how it comes to pass such a Church is so generally disesteemed Pag. 5. The first of these proved at large by considering what is necessary to eternal life Two things laid down 1. A sound Belief of all things necessary and the Church found guilty of no defect in that particular p. 6 7. 2. An Holy practise is found necessary and the Church of England found abounding with every thing necessary to promote that p. 10 usque 28. 2. An enquiry how it comes to pass such a Church is despised p. 28. Two sorts of men found faulty p. 29. 1. Professed Enemies Those considered 1. As persons disaffected upon a worldly account p. 29. 2. Persons disaffected upon a pretence of Conscience and Religion p. 31 32 33 34. 2. A consideration of false Friends as Enemies to the Church and those ranked into two sorts 1. As Persons considered in their Political capacity and two ways the Church proved to suffer by them 1. By their vicious lives and conversations especially if they be men of Power and Authority p. 35. 2. By their neglecting the execution of those Laws that are made for the Churches Honour and Safety p. 38. 2. This Church proved to lose its esteem by false Friends considered as persons dedicated to an Holy Office p. 42. Thirteen Reasons more given of the present contempt of the Church of England 1. The misconstruing of Judgments and making every calamity the effect of Gods Anger for the Churches encroachments upon the Rights of Christ p. 46. Three useful and seasonable enquiries proposed to those who are so bold and forward in particularizing the Reasons of Gods Judgments p. 51 53 55. 2. Another Reason of the Churches suffering assigned from the jealousie of many of the Gentry especially those who have swallowed down the Principles of Mr. Hobbs lest the Clergy should encroach too much upon their power in those Countreys where they live p. 56. 3. The Churches loss considered by erecting Schools of Academick studies and thereby poysoning the youth of the Nation p. 62. 4. The Churches loss considered by idle tales against the Reverend Bishops and their regular Clergy p. 65. 5. Another account of the neglect of this Church from Simoniacal contracts p. 70. Two injuries proved and asserted from hence p. 71 72. With an expostulation with the Lay-Patrons in order to a more conscientious disposal of their livings p. 73. 6. The Churches damage by the careless and remiss attendance of many of her professed admirers upon her publick Devotions and Instructions p. 74 75. 7. The Churches Honour proved lost by a careless consideration of those confusions that followed her dissolution by the pretended Power of the Long Parliament p. 76. 8. This Church found a great loser by misinterpreting and misapplying of several Texts of Scripture Some of those Texts named and the unworthiness and falseness of those interpretations reflected upon p. 78 79 80 81. 9. The credulity and easiness of the Common people to take in whatsoever is suggested by men pretending to more than ordinary Sanctity and Holiness proved another cause of the Churches present ruine p. 82 83 84. 10. The Church proved a loser by the Common peoples stiff adherence to whatever they have heedlesly sucked in p. 85. 11. The ill success of the Church laid at the door of those Atheistical Principles that have spread so far and near in the Kingdom p. 87. An enquiry made after the Reason of the present growth of Atheism p. 88. Four Reasons of it assigned 1. The changeableness of many mens Principles pretending to more than ordinary Godliness p. 88 89 90 91 92. 2. The wicked and vile actions of many boasting of extraordinary piety p. 93 94. 3. Unworthy Scandals and Reflections fastened upon Church-men p. 96. 4. The Non-execution of such Laws which are made on purpose to command the People to wait upon
those Institutions whereby Religion is instilled into their minds p. 98 99. 12. The Church proved to suffer inconvenience from the imprudent way of executing Justice by many of our subordinate Magistrates upon the Offenders of her Laws p. 103 104 105 106. Lastly The Churches loss considered by those mean and scanty Provisions that are made for her Children in many places especially in Corporation Towns p. 107. Three Inconveniences arising hence 1. As thereby Clergy-men are dispirited p. 111. 2. Or else debauched p. 113. 3. Or else discontented p. 115. Conclusion p. 116. An address 1. To the Nobility and Gentry p. 117 118 119 120. 2. To the Nonconformists p. 122 usque finem A MODEST PLEA FOR THE CHURCH of ENGLAND John VI. 68. Then Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life ALL Societies and incorporated Bodies Religious as well as Civil are preserved by Love and Union by being knit and keeping close together and whatsoever Principles they are that have any tendency to disperse and scatter to divide and separate men in their Judgments and Affections they ought to be shunned and abandoned as the underminers not only of mens peace and comfortable abode together but of their real safety and security and every man ought to fear the imbibing and sucking of them in as he does the most violent Poyson the least dram of which is enough to infect those vital parts which keep the body in good heart and plight For such principles they heat mens fancies and naturally make them proud and insolent and nothing can satisfie those who are commanded by them but Rule and Government Authority and Dominion and to curb and rein them in as to any thing they have placed their Passions on is to make them like the wild Bull entangled in a fast-knotted Net full of rage and fury overthrowing every thing with an impetuous violence that stands in their way to the enjoyment of their desire object and neither the Thrones of Princes nor the Stalls of Prelates shall escape their rude Tongues nor their ruder Hands but both the one and the other must be torn down on purpose to be a sacrifice to their Revenge and Lust to their Malice and evil Nature He that looks into History and by the advantage of his standing in the World can reflect upon the last thirty years Transactions in this Kingdom will quickly satisfie himself in this He will find by vertue of such Principles the best of Princes murthered and that which demonstrates the mischievous influence of these Principles indeed this horrid and unaccountable Action done with all the pretences of Law and Justice of Piety and Religion Further upon an easie search he will find the best of Churches framed with all advantages for the keeping up of the Purity of Religion and yet preserving that just honour and Grandeur that belongs both to its Service and its Officers this very Church first treated with scorn and reflected upon with the most bitter Sarcasmes and then robbed without the least Pity though I am sure with great Dishonesty with abundance of other spreading Evils which did these men take no more pleasure to act than I do to name they would not be so common in the world And therefore it being so it ought to be the care of every one of us to use our utmost diligence to discountenance and if possible to bury all those Principles from which we have experienced and do withal foresee so dreadful mischiefs and if we cannot do it by Arguments and Reason the force of which through Prejudice and interest is resisted why those with whom the execution of the Laws is entrusted the Civil Magistrates according to their Oaths ought to punish the Propagators and Spreaders of them And that they may be encouraged to so good a work and so very necessary at this time without which we must needs be involved in a certain if not speedy ruine these words are chosen to be treated upon at this time Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life The Sence of which words without any reflection upon the occasion of them in brief is this That so long as men can enjoy the clear Methods of Salvation and have all those necessary Means and Helps that the wants of their Souls require in order to eternal happiness so long as nothing is imposed upon them either in Belief or Practice that naturally tends to obstruct and hinder the progress of Holiness and Religion in mens Minds so long as men may under that Dispensation in which they were born and bred as easily nay sooner attain those divine Qualifications those excellent Dispositions those needful Graces and useful Vertues which the Gospel commands every mans endeavour after than they can under any other So long as the Society to which they are united is a true Society in which are all Administrations according to the injunction of him who is the Master of it why wither should we go from it in order to better and mend our selves Let us run into what Tents we please let us betake our selves to what numbers of men we can that magnifie themselves with the most glorious Titles and profess themselves the only Favourites and Intimadoes of the Holy Jesus why yet we can but attain to eternal Life and that I am sure to as good nay better purposes all things considered we may do where we are already and therefore Lord to whom shall we go for in that Church in which thou hast planted us and in that Church which thou hast for so many years watered with thy blessing we may have eternal Life and if men can honestly propound any other End in choosing either their Religion or their Opinions besides gaining this eternal Life why let them follow their own Fancies and be led by the wild fire of their own headlong imaginations And now I suppose by this time you may easily see into my Design which consists of these two things 1. To prove That we of this Church have all necessary Advantages for gaining of eternal Life and therefore have no just occasion to run away and separate from it 2. To inquire How it comes to pass that a Church in which we have all the Advantages for getting eternal Life should meet with such Contempt and Disregard should be in so sick and declining a Condition But before I enter upon either of these I must needs make this Protestation That I bless God I come not here to express mine own private Passions nor to act revenge for any particular injury I have received from those who by their Positions and their Practises do insinuate into the belief of the credulous World that we of this Church do shut men out of eternal Life No had it not been for an hearty zeal I have for the Church my Mother and for all your Interests as they are wrapt up in this Churches Happiness I could
them as the Natures of such things will bear neither understands his Bible nor yet hath well studied those Articles of the Church that he hath formally subscribed unto to suppose which of any Person dedicated by an Holy Office to God I think is very uncharitable Well then cannot you of the Separation for to you I speak these things meet with as good Reasons for the Being of a God for the Truth of the Messiah for the Necessity of Internal Holiness for the carrying your selves suitably to that Creature-state in which you are and so for all other Requisites to be known in our Legal places of Worship and from Men invested with a Legal as well as Divine Authority as from others who take up this publick way of Preaching without the allowance nay against the Command of the Laws of their Countrey I tell you to deny this is to be prond and vain and to arrogate too much to your selves A fault too common amongst some men who would make others believe they are the most dead and mortified persons in the World and yet at the same time care not whose Reputation they waste and spoil so they may advance their own 2. The other way whereby we profit is by having our Affections raised suitably to the Nature and Excellency of things believed and known Now I must confess while we are in the Body and many Notices of things are conveyed into our Understanding through our Senses we have need of all agreeable helps to reconcile us wholly to Religion and the several Duties of it and he that hath the advantage of a mellow Voice of a taking Delivery of a Gesture not fantastical but winning upon the truly wise as well as others he ought to be esteemed and loved and the Church ought to judge her happiness the greater in having the aid and assistance of such a Man But alas this is not founded in every mans Temper and if some men would purchase it with all they do enjoy it is not to be bought And therefore where it is 't is to be prized and where 't is not men ought not to be undervalued for that is to be so unreasonable as to despise them for what they cannot help nay 't is to reflect upon him that made them Well but be it so that these things contribute very much to the raising of our Passions pray tell me have the Nonconformists engrossed this kind of Temperature of body to themselves can none but they speak with loud voices with a becoming Pathos with a smart Accent are all the dutiful Sons of the Church either troubled with Colds or weakned by Catarrhs or almost choaked as soon as they begin to speak with a defluxion of Rheum and all this a Judgment upon them for their Conforming No such matter let but these men lay aside their prejudices and attend our publick Churches and they shall quickly find out men whose Countenances are as grave and awful whose Voices are as melodious and sweet whose Expressions are as weighty and well chosen as any of the separated Brethrens are and consequently who are every way as well fitted by natural Gifts of Body to raise mens Affections as the others are I and these men are not sprinkled here and there but you shall find them in most Countreys and Cities And therefore no man can have any reason upon this account to leave our Church And if this thing was but searched to the bottom I believe we should find something else besides the Information of their Judgments and the raising of their Affections that these men place their profiting in but I list not to render any persons pretending to Religion ridiculous However before I leave this head I will venture at so much that when I consider abundance of these People that run into these holes and corners how peevish and wayward they are how proud and haughty disdaining every person that goes not along with them into the by-paths of Separation reflecting upon them as poor carnal and ignorant Creature further when I consider how ignorant and illiterate many of them are not understanding the common Reasons that may be given for Religion and those several Truths that make up the Body of it and how most of their skill and cunning chiefly consists in repeating and making use of some broken pieces of Scriptures and discoursing of Jesus Christ in a rude and nonsensical way Further when I consider how little they understand the Difference betwixt us and them and what slender Reasons they give for their leaving our publick Worship and how readily they follow any man that separates purely upon that score though his Principles do more widely differ from what they pretend are their own than theirs from ours Further when I consider the bitterness of their Spirits expressed by their very angry looks when they meet any of us in our accustomed Garbs and by those unchristian as well as ungentile and unmannerly Titles with which they load us Why these with many other things that might be named do perswade me that there is not so much profit reaped by hearing these men as they would make the World believe for I am sure these things argue much of the Leaven of the Pharisee but nothing at all of the Temper and Spirit of the Gospel and he that hath no better Evidences than these of his Saintship I am sure will find no other than the foolish Virgins entertainment at the last Day 3. Let us take a view of the Advantages we have for Eternal Life by a Holy Life as this Holiness is expressive of it self in those Duties that belong to man especially our Governours and Superiours And here I am sure the Members of our Church stand upon a better ground than any other sort or profession of men whatsoever and for the defence of this Truth I dare enter the Lists both with the Conclave and the Classis at the same time together Let any man though prejudiced to the utmost stand up and tell me where and when he hath met a man truly governed by the Principles of the Church of England that hath taken the Sword into his hands upon any pretence whatsoever against his Lawful Soveraign or that hath made it his trade and business to whisper things against his Governours and to insinuate Prejudices into the Minds of his Neighbours against the present management of Affairs Where can you find a man amongst us who contrary to the Commands of his Lawful Soveraign hath entred into an Oath framed and drawn up on purpose to overthrow the Fundamental Rights and Priviledges of the people as well as the Essential Prerogative of his Prince much less can you shew me a man managed by the Doctrine and declared Opinion of this Church who hath shut the door and kept close Guards upon the Chief Magistrate of his Countrey and after that hath barbarously embrued his hands in his Princes Blood No no you must go beyond the
Alpes and the Tweed to find out such as these The true Members of our Church are in this Particular untainted and so far as men are under the guidance of her Pastors and the influence of her Discipline so far they imitate the first Ages of Christianity wherein men knew how to advance the credit of their Religion by suffering but never by resisting for they knew that Government was an Ordinance of God 4. If we proceed further and take a view of those several Instances of Holiness which are expressed by an affable and modest Carriage to our Equals by an extensive Bounty to our inferiours whose straits and wants call for our relief certainly we have in this Church as great Advantages for the exercising of these as in any whatsoever We have Bibles in our Houses to read and are allowed the reading of them as well as they and I presume we can read as well as they for though some of them proudly do engross the Spirit yet sure they will leave the Letter to us and I think without pride we may say that we have Judgments and Understandings to receive those Notices of things the Word of God brings unto us and if so why may not we be in as good a Capacity to practise all those Vertues which these Relations call for and are so plainly laid down in the Holy Word Why may not we if we exercise our Natural Abilities and seriously weigh those pressing Arguments that are fetched from Hopes and Fears those great Foundations of a pious Life why I say may not we fix and establish in our Minds those Divine Graces the Gospel recommends unto us such as patience and Humility Charity and Self-denial Courage and Resolution Temperance and Chastity c. Especially considering we have the Spirit of God ready to help and cooperate with all our honest endeavours For when our Adversaries are cool and sober this they dare not deny which if they do as God knows in some of their heats they are so unwary as to assert why they are at the same time so monstrously uncharitable as to call in Question the Salvation of all those Worthies of the Church that have been ever since the first Reformation and our Judicious Morton our Devout and Pious Hall and our Learned Sanderson with vast Numbers of others must according to these mens Opinions that every Member of our Church barely by being so hath forfeited his Interest in Gods good Spirit 's assistance be adjudged to be now scorching in the Flames of Hell A Censure enough to stir the choler and ferment the Blood of any man who hath but the least spark of Humanity lest within him And though I know they plead for themselves that our Ordinances which should be the instruments to convey these Divine Principles and Graces into us are stained by impure mixtures by uncommanded Ceremonies Why when they can find out a Discipline without any Ceremony purely fetched out of the Word of God delivered in as plain and obvious terms as the Mosaick Dispensation was and declared by God that it was his will and pleasure in every Circumstance that that Government should be maintained and submitted unto when they can present us with a Model having nothing of Humane and Prudential Determination in it we will answer them and to do it before is at once to spend our Time and our Breath in vain Only I take leave upon this occasion to make this digression which I think is not unsuitable to the design I have in hand That I have been a very impartial Considerer of this Objection and by vertue of my first Converse in the World these and such like suggestions from men whom I was taught to believe were the only Children of God had a very fair hearing in my Breast and I was willing to incline to those Arguments proposed by them for the Defence of that noise and bustle they made in the World But when I came afterwards to consider the Authority wherewith Princes both upon Natural and Revealed Principles and Grounds are invested and the miserable confusions that are consequent upon slighting or resisting that Authority when I considered the great Reasons for making Laws and the necessity of keeping up their reputation and paying a constant Veneration to them if we would be preserved in any tolerable degrees of Peace and Safety further when I considered that the very Reasons why the Brethren of the Separation declare their dislike of our Ceremonies are disowned by our Church witness their declared Opinion of the Sign of the Cross and Kneeling at the Sacrament in the very Rubrick and that these men are forced to make new and unheard of distinctions to render them unlawful witness a Book printed some time since by one of the Chiefs of them against a Member of our Church Further when I considered that if there was any Reason to scruple the Lawfulness of these things yet it was not so great nor so apparent as the Reasons against Schism and Disobedience and that the complying with the one could not possibly be so dangerous to all Societies of men as the ingaging in the other These with many other considerations satisfied me not only in the Convenience but considering the present differences in the Kingdom in the Necessity of yielding Obedience to the established Orders of the Church and I could never yet get leave of my self to concur in Judgment with one now at this time much admired and followed in the City Mr. Jenkins That the laying aside the Ceremonies of the Church was a sufficient compensation for all that Blood and Treasure that had been spilt in the late unnatural and bloudy War but wish with all my heart that they had continued till the general conflagration of the world rather than such a war should have commenced for I am certain that the necessary results and consequences of the one are a thousand times more prejudicial to the honour and reputation of the Protestant Cause than the continuance of the other could have been had they been as had nay many degrees worse than our interested and zealous Adversaries have made them And we are able to answer all Arguments raised against a Cross or a Surplice when we cannot without steeled Brows and seared Consciences vindicate and defend the late Rebellion But in short this in my apprehension and I am sure I am not prejudiced is so baffled a Cause that I wonder men of Parts and Learning are not ashamed to offer at the Vindication of it and I do verily believe those men that now make themselves the Heads of these dividing Parties would not assume the confidence to fix such odious Names upon the so well defended Ceremonies of the Church and upon us for our peaceable and obedient using of them did not they meet with so many ignorant and uninstructed people who are prepared upon the account of those great pretences these men make to a more severe Holiness than
Constitution suffers from men who are enemies upon a pretence of Conscience and Religion And here I might bring you a Catalogue of various Sects and Parties of men who though they cannot agree amongst themselves when they come to divide the Churches spoil yet all combine together to make the Church it self their spoil and in pursuit of this by what Names do they describe this excellent Church in their Prayers and Preachments but by the Whore of Babylon the Cruel Dragon that pours out flouds of poysonous water upon the Woman the Slayer of the Witnesses with many other of this Nature And her pious Prayers must be scorned under the Notion of dull and formal things fit for dark Times and for none to use but such as understand not the impressions of Gods good Spirit And her Reverend Prelates instead of the ancient and Primitive Appellation of Fathers must be branded with the Name of Step-Fathers instead of Pillars Caterpillars whose Houses are haunted and their Episcopal Chairs poysoned by the Spirit that bears rule in the Air. And for her Ceremonies they forsooth must be reported to be kept on foot on purpose to symbolize with and show our affections to the Church of Rome and this must be said with a great deal of confidence notwithstanding the men that suggest it know and are convinced at the same time that no men of any Profession whatever have thrust sharper Darts into the sides of that pretended Catholick Mother than the Sons of the Church have done And though I know this looks very disingenously and I think I had not wronged my Charity if I had said Dishonestly yet nothing is more common amongst men who study the Interest of a Party and are resolved to six themselves if possible in the Chair of Authority and Government The most useful Vertues must be made Vices and Worthy Actions that serve the Publick and argue a true Generosity of Mind in him that does them yet must be misconstrued and the Principles of the Actions censured and some Circumstance or other thrust into them whereby the Credit of them may be blasted Thus when Archbishop Land took care for preventing the subversion of the Church of England by the spreading of the Socinian Heresies in suppressing books of that nature Mr. Burton charges it as one of his Crimes upon him reproaching him for suppressing those Books for no other Reason but because they magnified the Authority of the Holy Scriptures A Censure as full of Spight and evil Nature as most I have met withal But thus it is and as far as I can see into Affairs and Tempers will be so long as some Designs are on foot and some sorts of Spirits are permitted Let us say what we will and enter into all manner of serious Protestations that we are no Papists neither aim at the Introduction of Popery in the least Let the Members of our Church write with never so much strength and weight against the Innovations of that Church nay let the Life of our Church be begun in the Death of many Worthies for their resolved and stedfast Opposition to that Church why yet that we are Papists or else inclinable thereunto being a pretty way to convey Prejudices into the Common People against us and to draw off their Affections to our Persons that thereby they may the more easily be allured from our Doctrine and Publick Administrations why to this good End and that the Glory of God may be magnified and the Power of his pure Ordinances demonstrated in the destruction of the Sons of Babylon we must be Papists and we must drink of the same Cup of Fornication that Mother of Harlots does and when we write against her 't is but a Copy of our countenances for in our hearts we are for Rome And after all this can any man wonder that a Church so batter'd at by Persons professing more than ordinary Sanctity and Holiness and expressing that Holiness by so many formal and taking ways by all that their Hands and Tongues their Faces and Gestures are capable of that a Church thus misrepresented and withal to persons of weak Judgments and yet strong conceits as God knows most of the common people are can we I say wonder that a Church surrounded and stormed by such Enemies as these lives not in its ancient Splendour in its just and due Esteem And what will be the end of permitting all this though I must confess I have many sad Reflections about it why that I leave to the Magistrates of the Kingdom who have great Estates to preserve and ancient Families to support and continue to consider of And thus having shown you the Damages this Church sustains by open Enemies we will now proceed to and take notice of the Injuries she suffers from false Friends And here also we find Two Sorts of Persons whom she hath no reason to be proud of 1. Some whom we will consider as Persons in their Political Capacity as Members of the Civil Body and Two ways the Church suffers by them 1. By their vicious Lives and Conversations especially if the men who lead these Lives be men of Power and Authority It is observed that among the Common People things though never so excellent in themselves though never so conducive to advantageous purposes yet they lose their esteem when men of profligate Lives have the Manage of them And though I have to assault my Betters with any rudeness and both my Function and Education oblige me to Decency both in my words and carriage yet give me leave to be a little plain with you that are our Country Patriots and to entreat you all who by the good liking of our great Lord the King sit in higher Places than others to vindicate the Honour of our Church to recommend it to the choice and love of all within your Neighbourhood by your sober Lives and worthy Conversations It was an excellent Saying of an Honourable Person some years ago who when lying upon his death-bed did thus express himself That he had looked into all Forms and considered all Models of Discipline and Governmens and found none so agreeable both to the Apostolical Example and Primitive Practice as the Discipline and Government of the Church of England and that he found but one unanswerable Argument against it and that was the Lives of too many who profess an outward kindness to it Oh did our Magistrates comport themselves according to the Rules of the Holy Gospel did they countenance Godliness and Sobriety and punish all those notorious Impieties which are so obvious to the Common People and which where only the Laws of Nature have their Influence come under censure did they in their several Publick Meetings carry themselves with that Gravity which becomes their Places and which indeed their places if they would keep up the necessary Reputation of them call for at their hands Further did they encourage the Publick Preachers by their constant Attendance and
that the Scarcity of Corn which is their every day necessary Food proceeds from Gods displeasure against Bishops and other Clergy-men for keeping Christ out of his Government and Kingdome and that those several Fires which tear down their Houses and give so great affrightments are purely kindled upon the score that Gods people by whom they mean themselves are punished for not yielding to Romish and Superstitions Impositions Certainly such suggestions as these to people who are hugely governed by Sense and take their measures of things by Success and Prosperity must needs stir up all the Passions that are within them and confirm in them the greatest prejudice and displeasure against a Government from which so much evil hath been derived both to mens Persons and Estates And further their impatient longing after a full enjoyment of all those things that contribute to their worldly Happiness must needs put them upon all violent means to throw down that Interest which destroyes so much at present and set up the other whereby they are invited to believe all happiness and outward welfare would attend them especially if you do but add to those things a Description of a glorious State of spiritual things wherein they shall have a share of Government and not be at this rate always under Guardianship and Subjection ridden by Priests and other Antichristian Officers Oh! such an Expectation makes their Bloud boyl within them and to promote these excellent things they care not what wrong they do either to Church-mens Reputation or Revenues nor what Method they make use of to weaken the Forces of such a Babylonish Crew who would stand betwixt them and the splendid Manifestation of Christ's Power and Kingdom And if any man object and say I am uncharitable in fixing such an Imputation upon the Adversaries of the Church I answer again 't is no breach of charity to charge men with Truth and to let the World know by what base and sinister means they lessen the deserved Honour of our Church nay 't is a piece of Charity and Justice to our selves And that I have not charged them falsely I refer any man to those Interpretations they made of the last great Plague and never-to-be-forgotten Fire in which though many of these men wanted not their share as to loss and damage yet Good men such was their Innocency they had no hand in the provocation though one would have thought had the Fire been purely to vindicate their cause the Angel of the Lord should have marked their Houses as he did the Israelites in Egypt and commanded those furious Flames to have passed them over and spent their rage upon theirs alone who were professed Sons of the Church of England And let them say what they please by way of excuse for themselves yet this is their course still and though Judgments are sent as tokens of Divine displeasure against all those breaches of Gods righteous Laws all those open and bold-faced Impieties all those Enormities that are usual amongst any Party or Division of Men whatsoever though we all come short of the Glory of God and every man from the highest to the lowest by some miscarriage or other helps to kindle the fire in the Divine Breast yet this Church of England this cruel Stepmother who tears out of Gods Childrens hands the pure Bread that falls down from Heaven and would put them off with empty Husks these proud and domineering Clergy-men who live in ease and idleness why for the sake of these does God suffer the Air to be infected the Earth to be dry and barren and the Heavens to be as Brass over our heads Oh! were but Antichrist once destroyed and all the appendant Limbs thereof and Christs own Ordinances and pure Institutions set up in the World what a new face of things would be presently then would our Floors be full of wheat and our Fat 's should overflow with Wine and Oil then the Saints should meet with joy and sing their songs upon Sigiâ—nâ—th yea then would Gods people execute vengeance upon the Heathen and punishment upon the People and bind their Kings in chains and their Nobles in fetters of iron And oh how does this good news tickle the vulgar sort of people and how pleased are they in their fanciful Reflections upon what brave Times will be and what brave things they will do when they come to have a share in the Powers of the Earth and put hooks into the Nostrils of the great Leviathans the Temporal and the Spiritual Tyrants that have eaten up Gods people as they eat Bread And that these good things may be accomplished and they may leave the blessing of them to their Posterity why good men many of them care not by what Spoils and Rapines by what Untruths and Falsehoods they slurr the Credit and ruine the Reputation of such a Church as is the great bar to these happy Enjoyments And because this is so common a thing among all Sectaries whatever and they have so partial a kindness for themselves as to sweep their own doors and lay the loads upon other mens shoulders give me leave to make an useful Digression and show the Vanity and Irreligion of such doings by proposing to these men a few Questions 1. Whether they do not by particularizing the Reason of Gods Judgments pretend to a Knowledge which they cannot according to Gods ordinary Methods of proceeding with the World at this time attain unto For that Miracles since the Settlement of the Gospel-Dispensation in those places where its Profession is become National are ceased I think is passed all doubt and that God now deals with mens Reason and Understanding and offers them the Evidence of former Miracles in conjunction with other Arguments in order to their Conviction of the Truth of what he hath delivered is past all scruple and further that no Man that pretends to have a further Revelation than what is made in Scripture is to be believed unless either I have a Revelation signifying that his Revelation is true or else he bring his Letters credential along with him and by Workings above the power of Nature such as Christ and his Apostles and their Successors for some continuance of time had prove his Mission I think is beyond all controversie So that then these men who that they may the better heat the Common People against us pretend themselves Gods Familiars and privy Counsellors and by vertue of their Intimacy with him boldly lay Judgments at the doors of other men by what way shall we know they are right in their Interpretation and that God grew very angry with this Nation as soon as Episcopacy was restored and the Lands of the Church returned into the possession of the right owners again and that the Plague and the Fire were sent purely to vindicate their cause and to express Gods indignation against that cruel and hard usage they met withal Can they satisfie us in the truth of this
prejudices to act over the same part again I think every honest man ought to let the unwary Vulgar know what was the effect of these mens former undertakings that so they may be armed against all temptations thereunto for the time to come if ever opportunity which God forbid should serve them 8. The Church of England receives very considerable prejudice by misinterpreting and misapplying of several Texts of Scripture which are forcibly pressed contrary to their very grammatical sense to serve the ends and designs of her Adversaries and to draw off the common people from any good opinion of her The common people I say whose size of understanding is so little as to live wholly upon other mens Judgments and to believe what these busie Encroachers upon the Rights of Government say without any serious reflections or considerations at all and such sort of people making up the greatest body and upon that account being most useful for any wicked enterprize when opportunity shall serve they are those whom these men principally court and whom they make proud by insinuating into them a belief of their excellency above all the rest of the World and the peculiar esteem God hath had for them from all eternity without any consideration of their good or evil deeds And if any man shall urge me with a false accusation in this particular I only refer him to the several printed Sermons of these men in the Long Parliaments time and if he do not there find very wretched and dishonest perverting of Scripture in this particular I will acknowledge my self deserving the severest punishment so great a scandal calls for I list not to bring mens names upon the stage though I could swell this Treatise by such quotations if I pleased Only I will ask these men what agreement there is betwixt Egypt with her garlick and onyons and the Church of England and her Ceremonies For my part I can find none and I suppose all wise men are of my mind and therefore there can be nothing else designed by this comparison but an ugly insinuation into the Vulgar people that our King and Bishops are as great enemies to Gods people as Pharaoh was to the Seed of Abraham and that the Laws made for the preservation and honour of our Church are as great burthens as those the Israelites underwent by the cruelty of the Egyptian taskmasters Further I would fain know what affinity there is betwixt us and that Babylon that is made mention of in the Revelations and threatned with so great a ruine Yet Babylon being a word used to a very bad sense and to represent such a great Degeneracy why presently this poor innocent Church that imposes nothing upon the minds of men either in point of Belief or Practice but what is admirably serviceable to the ends and designs of Religion she must hand over head be called Babylon and upon this score the common people must be taught to run away from her because she is under that denomination the Mother of Harlots though many of those that upon such suggestions have forsaken her Discipline and Government God knows have run themselves out of breath and have setled no where till they have sunk either into Atheism or Popery Further when the Separatists invite the ignorant rabble to encrease their Numbers in order to affright Governours from interrupting them in their Spiritual enjoyments as they call them by such places of Scripture as that 2 Corinthians 6.17 Come out from among them and be you separate touch no unclean thing are they not very unworthy or else very ignorant in the application of it to our Church for upon a true consideration that place refers to nothing but the Idolatry of the Heathens and hath no Argument in it if they cannot prove us as truly Idolatrous as the Heathens were until the doing of which they ought by all the obligations of honesty to let our people live peaceably and quietly amongst us serving God according to the appointments and Institutions of our Church and if they will but give us rest and peace so long we need not fear their vying Numbers with us Again when they engage the credulous Multitude to withdraw from our publick Devotions by citing that place of the Apostle 2 Colos 20 21. Touch not taste not handle not which refers upon an impartial enquiry into the Apostles meaning so certain Impositions such as abstaining from Marriage and some sorts of meats as utterly unlawful which were not so and so became real encroachments and usurpations upon the Christian liberty why though this strikes at the Church of Rome which imposes upon the minds of men things as absolutely necessary which have no such necessity neither in their own nature nor by vertue of any command from God yet it reaches not at all any legal injunction of our Church which is recommended as indifferent and declared not to change its nature by being commanded by Authority and that it is alterable when it seems good to the same Authority which is all we say of our Ceremonies And now so long as the people by such slight artifices as these are to be deceived and that there are certain busie and needy persons who make a trade of imposing thus upon them so long we cannot expect to keep our Church in a flourishing state And to speak my mind freely when I take notice of the education of the greatest part of men and their natural jealousie of their superiours I rather wonder considering all things that we have so many continue in our Communion still Though I hope a time will come when the people will be better informed and warned against such evil designers as too many of these men are And these reflections necessarily inform me of another head under which I may bring the present misery of our Church and that is 9. The credulity and easiness of the common people to take in whatsoever is suggested to them by men pretetending more than ordinary sanctity and holiness Alas their Judgments being but weak and crazy and their improvements very small for which they stand engaged chiefly to a careless education and their affections being the chief Ringleaders of them into Belief as well as Action why let but a crafty fellow come and utter himself with a loud and Stentor-like voice let him open his throat till he be hoarse again and make several sorts of faces let him but pretend a more than ordinary pity and compassion for their Souls telling them God hath sent him on purpose to rescue them out of the jaws of misery and destruction and alas let it be what it will he utters though never so nonsensical and rude though never so heretical and blasphemous yet it is swallowed down as glib as a gilded pill and the subtle designer is taken into their Houses as an Angel newly dropt down from Heaven And Oh whas running and riding to hear this excellent and inspired person and
with what power and demonstration of the Spirit does he preach And the easie Multitude presently enroll themselves in God's eternal Register and cry up themselves as his elect and peculiar Vessels because God hath taken such care of them as to send so powerful a Messenger amongst them And though I could produce sufficient evidence of the truth of this from the Histories and Accounts of the late bad times yet I will be sparing and only for the confirmation of what I have here asserted refer the Reader to the story of Mrs. Hutchinson in New England We know very well that the people that first went over thither were such as had notoriously forsaken the Church of England and were therefore amongst one another cryed up as the most Godly and tender conscienced people in the world such as longed after nothing more than to bathe themselves in the pure streams and to breath in the clear air of Gospel Ordinances people who were inwardly acquainted with Gods will being his secret and hidden ones and manifesting themselves so by exposing their lives and fortunes in crossing the Seas and taking up their habitations in an howling desert and all this out of principles of Conscience and an earnest desire to worship God according to the pattern in the Mount And yet these very people who if you will believe the brags they made of themselves had an Unction from the holy one and were thereby impowered to know all things who were cryed up as wise sober and well-grounded Christians why no sooner did they hear the charming voice of this bold and daring woman though the things delivered by her had by their own confession the whole current of Scripture against them but they presently cryed her up as one raised up of God for some great work and amongst many other things the calling of the Jews was at hand and she was to be the Instrument of it And as the story says writ by themselves she had more resort to her for counsel and clearing up mens spiritual estates than any Minister nay than all the Elders in the Countrey And if this be not a sufficient evidence of the easiness and weakness of the common people I cannot tell what is And how far such people are to be trusted with liberty to hear any Deceiver that sets up for a Guide and Director of the people I leave the Governours of the Kingdom whose concernments are of greater weight and moment than mine own to judge Only this I will assert that had the Common people been wiser or the Deceivers of them fewer I am sure the Church had been in a better state than now it is 10. Again the stiffness of the common people and their pertinacious adherence to whatsoever they have heedlesly sucked in against the present Government under which they live is another ground of our Churches decay For let these men be but once prejudiced against any thing upon the least account and they become next to unalterable and it must be a great deal of time and a considerable addition of knowledge and understanding that can bring them off This is obvious to every observing man whatsoever And therefore we ought to take especial care that nothing be insinuated into them but what is wholsome and savoury but what tends to peace and quietness and to the preservation of those several societies they help to make up for you may as soon hope to remove a Mountain as to bring such people whose Reason is subjected to the Impressions of passion and fansie to a right understanding and a modest and hearty retractation of their formerly imbibed errors For though they can give no tolerable account of the grounds of their Opinions yet they have learned confidence enough to laugh at and despise all that can be offered for the conviction of their judgments and they will be in the Right though all the rest of the World and many of those much wiser than themselves be in the wrong And though they cannot argue yet they are taught to throw dirt in the face of him that attempts their reduction and to load him with all those Names by which both Idols and Idolaters are called and represented in Holy Scripture And therefore upon this very consideration I heartily recommend it both to Parents and Masters that they keep their Children and their Servants from resorting to such places where they are in danger of having their Judgments thus poysoned and infected for they cannot imagine the great trouble that may redound from thence as well to themselves as to their Governours for assuredly there is nothing makes men more proud and insolent more busie and headstrong more obstinate and stubborn than Principles of Schism and Separation and if any man shall judge me harsh and censorious for saying so I dare undertake to give such plain and late Instances of the truth of what I have said as I am certain will convince any person who does not resolvedly shut his eyes against the Light 11. We may further lay this present ill success of our Church at the door of those Atheistical principles that have spread so far and near in the Kingdom For the Church being made up of a number of persons linked together in the belief of such and such Articles of Faith and in Covenant and promise to worship God according to his will and pleasure why it is impossible when that which is the Foundation of all this is taken away but the superstructure should fall immediately And further the Censures of this Church being designed to punish men in this world in order to free them from the plagues of another why alas these Censures must needs be mocked at by those who have got up to the belief that there is no such thing at all as another world And that a man must by necessary consequence believe if he think there is no God for these great Fundamentals stand and fall together And upon this score where Atheism hath got any interest or credit you will find no men more loose to Government more severe in their reflections upon the Canons and Constitutions of the Church and who indeed make nothing else but a laughter at the whole Systeme of Religion And therefore Atheism and its principles being so vastly pernicious to all Churches whatsoever it will not be amiss to inquire into its Original that so the root from whence these poisonous branches grow may be stubb'd up and I am afraid we shall find many of those persons concerned in the present growth of this bad weed who would very willingly be looked upon as the chiefest dressers in Gods Vineyard 1. The Atheism that is at present so rife among us ows its growth to the changeableness of many mens principles who pretend to more than ordinary Godliness He that measures Religion as God knows the greatest part of Mankind do not by its intrinsick worth and that full and rational evidence that it brings along with
ungodly men are so ready to punish them for their defence and propagation of it And upon this very account they clap one the other upon the back and resolve unanimously to go on with what they have begun notwithstanding all the opposition they shall meet withal for who would not suffer the loss of Estate Liberty or Life itself in a cause against which such ungodly men are severe and bitter and who would not expect Heaven for a reward hereafter who meet with such harsh and cruel dealings from men who do too much by their oaths and curses betray themselves to be the Agents and Instruments of Hell And though this is but a popular plea and will not hold water when it comes to be thoroughly searched and tryed though laws are never the worse for the wickedness of those to whom the execution of them is committed and though Justice is the same thing when done by a wicked as a Godly Magistrate yet for our Sions sake I could wish with all mine Heart that our Magistrates when such Malefactors are brought before them would execute publick Justice like men who do not appear to sacrifice to their own revenge but who design a publick good to wit the reducing people to those Principles of subjection and obedience without which we must needs be exposed to continual dangers and hazards It is not to be imagined how these refractory persons are silenced when they appear before Magistrates of Prudence and Discretion such as treat them with all tenderness and pity representing to them the evil of their doing and gravely admonishing them against such doings for the time to come executing the Laws upon them with all the symptomes of grief and trouble with all the demonstrations of a Spirit that carries in it true compassion for those who ignorantly err and a readiness heartily to pray for those who are obstinate and wilful this is to follow the Apostles advice to restore our sain Brethren with the spirit of meekness and this is the only way to beget in them a belief that as truly pious tender and gracious spirits may lodge in the Breasts of men every ways obedient to those Laws they by their wily Preachers are made to believe are destructive of the Rights of the Lord Jesus as in any men of any other yea of their own particular perswasion Nay for ought I know this prudent and compassionate carriage may be the occasion of their recovery from their present separation For certainly nothing more pacifies Wrath and Anger from which we all know Nonconformity receives no inconsiderable strength and addition than a word in season a soit word a wise carriage even to Delinquents themselves especially when all this is done by men of Authority and Reputation in their Neighbourhood And therefore I do here put up my hearty Prayers to Almighty God for all our Chiefs and Worthies in whose hands the defence and safety of our excellent and yet despised Church is lodged that as Judgment may run down like water and Righteousness like a mighty stream so That Righteousness may meet with Peace and love and they may kiss each other and as I do not wish the suspension of any Laws wherein the welfare of Societies is wrapt so I do wish that whensoever they are put in execution it may be in such a way as may convince gainsayers and stop the mouths of all those who lye at catch to take advantage from the haltings either of Magistrates or Ministers Lastly This Church loses very much of its deserved reputation by those mean and seamy provisions and supplies that are made for many of her Children whose educations and improvements entitle them to greater encouragements than most of the Vicaridges in England are endowed withal and till this be remedied as I hinted somewhat before we must never have things so prosperous and successful on the Churches side as she does indeed deserve For 't is impossible considering how things go and are apprehended by the major part of the World for Clergy-Men to conciliate a just respect to themselves and thereby to recommend the Government to the love and liking of the Vulgar without such Incomes as are agreeable to their Function and will enable them to be of the giving as well as receiving hand And truly when I have sate down sometimes and considered with my self the several reasons and occasions of the late cruel and blondy War I could not but resolve both it and the dreadful consequences of it amongst some other things into this of which I am now complaining and I have often thought that it had not been possible for the people of England to have been drawn into such a combination and confederacy against so excellent a Prince had they not been strangely perverted and abused by some discontented and self-seeking knaves And who they were 't is no hard matter to conjecture for if you had gone before the War into Cities and incorporated Towns where usually the spiritual Livings are made up of few and petty Tythes there you should have found a Male-contented Gentleman had fixt his habitation making some tolerable snow of Hospitality especially to the Mayor or Aldermen and their Brethren and by his advice and means a factious Preacher brought in depending upon voluntary subscriptions for his livelihood who by tones and gestures by shrugs and winks by all popular artifices was continually suggesting suspicions of the Government to the people the Dames especially who they say in those places and in those times governed the Right Worshipful themselves and the great Themes of their Discourses were the Wickedness of the times the encroachments of the Bishops upon the Rights of the Lord Jesus the stinting of the spirit by Forms of Prayer the severe dealing with the people of God that was themselves but withal which was a great cordial to their oppressed spirits the great Reasons of the Saints joyful expectation of better times fetched out of Daniel or Revelations places admirably fitted to the Dames apprehensions and understandings with an hundred such like popular insinuations as these and by this means the people were taught to suspect their Governours as Enemies to the cause of God and from thence brought to an hatred of them and so by degrees fitted for any undertaking these cunning Leaders should in the name of God and the Lord Jesus animate them unto And by these ways were the people of England seduced into the most unnatural rebellion which ended in the most horrid Murther that History can parallel Whereas had these Great Towns been furnished with such Encouragements as might have invited men of integrity and learning to have sate down amongst them the People had been better taught and consequently disposed to nothing but what was expressive of Loyalty and Obedience of their hearty affection and esteem for him to whose care and Government the providence of God had committed them For let but the common people hear nothing but what is
they grow vext and impatient and straightways their thoughts are fixt upon revenge and from a quarrel with those who sit at the Helm they fall out with the Government it self and all their parts are bent upon finding out plausible Arguments and pretences to sink its reputation amongst the people and no stone is left unturned to carry on this wicked purpose and resolution It is an easie matter to make this assertion out from the accounts of every age of Christianity Heresies Schisms seditions and publick disturbances have most of them crept in at this back door and whosoever will give himself the leave to take a just account of the Apostasie of many from our Church some few years after the Reformation and ever since he will not be long before he find this its original and spring which thing though not altogether yet very much had been prevented if all the Spiritual allotments for Ministers had been comfortable and such as would have afforded wise men for I undertake not to be an advocate for Fools and Prodigals a convenient and creditable maintenance AND now having said thus much in the vindication of this excellent Church and withal given the Reasons of those many disparagements she hath in these late years met withal I cannot draw off my pen from paper till by it I have made my humble address to the Nobility and Gentry and all others who are concerned by vertue either of their Principles or Estates in the preservation of the Kingdoms peace and Nations welfare and are very unwilling to be sad spectators of those ruines and desolations that not many years ago many of them to their own as well as the Nations sorrow were too sadly acquainted withal till I say I have made my humble address to them and implored them by all that is near and dear to them to use that power God and the King hath entrusted them withal in stifling those Opinions in suppressing those dangerous Principles and Maxims in preventing those practises which have had so bad an influence upon the Body Politick and in using all methods by which they may be kept from the Common People whom we find by sad experience easily leavened and as easily afterwards wrought upon to enter into any Evil action whereby the peace and happiness of the Kingdom may be endangered And though it may be this address may be looked upon as the product of a malicions and revengeful spirit yet God that knows the hearts of men knows it flows from no such bitter Fountain but so far as I am in a capacity to serve any of these persons against whom I now complain in their personal capacity no man can I am sure be more ready and more forward Let them but live agreeable to the Laws under which they live and that but as far as their own avowed Principles will give them leave which I think is a very reasonable request and they shall not want that just esteem from my self and so I am sure from all men of my Principles that they do deserve Which if they will not do but continue resolute in widening our differences making our breaches greater forming men into parties and numbers in opposition to the injunction of all those prudent Laws that are enacted by the great Authority of the Nation and thereby strengthning and encouraging that deplorable Schism that is amongst us why truly I think he wants the Spirit and Courage of a Man who holds his tongue and by his silence gives the least spirit to such undertakings For alas what can we imagine all this will centre and bottom in and who will be the chief gainers by these divisions That certainly is no hard matter to determine And truly in my apprehension 't is very sad that the revenge of our Nonconforming Brethren should be so great against the Church of England that rather than she shall continue in any glory and be vested with any Authority they will use their utmost endeavours to pull her down though it be to the destruction of the Protestant Cause both at home and abroad and to the Introduction of Popery it self A good sign indeed of a Gospel Spirit and of that tenderness of Conscience these men profess upon all occasions when pressed to any necessary complyance with the Laws of the Kingdom And therefore seeing it is so that these men will play any game rather than that in which the safety of the Church as well as State is concerned truly I think all the true Patriots of the Countrey ought to look upon them accordingly and give them such fare as by those Oaths they take when they are admitted to their office they are obliged to And seeing they are resolved we shall fall though they know it must needs be accompanied with so great a ruine to that Cause and Interest which was purchased with the bloud of the Martyrs which hath been a Sanctuary to distressed and banished Foreigners and which indeed as it is here maintained by so many prudent Laws is the only stay and support of all the Protestant Churches abroad seeing I say they are resolved to have their wills of this Church notwithstanding these sad and too much to be feared effects and consequences of it I do declare I think all true hearted Magistrates in whose hands the execution of the Laws does lie ought to let them know that they owe more Regard to the present Government of the Kingdom and that if they will continue fixt in their Resolves to bear down all that stands in their way to the undermining the Churches safety and reputation so on the other hand they the Magistrates are as well resolved to hinder by all legal and worthy means so great and so unseasonable a violence to those Laws wherein mens Estates and Liberties mens Religion and consequently their Souls are so much concerned And I am certain nothing is a greater argument among the present Magistrates either of Cowardize or else of Ignorance and Non-observation than to suffer such assaults upon Government without a suitable resentment of them and to connive at such practises as are apparently tending to shuffle in a Religion once again amongst us by which the Prince loses half his Government and the people all their Reason and Sense together And therefore Worthy Sirs I beg of you to consider what is incumbent upon you at present do not you let Justice sleep while covetousness and ambition while Faction and discontent is devouring and eating up all those sober principles whereby your Estates as well as any thing else is secured to you and your Posterity after you Let not a Church that teaches all her Members to live contentedly in all those subordinations the Providence of God hath placed them and up to all those Duties which belong to those several places I say let not this Church be scorned and trampled under feet by rude and revengeful persons And if you think them people of meek and peaceable
them loose I have done and shall submit to the Will of my Superiours but till then I think the ill influence that this general disobedience hath upon the minds of the more ignorant sort of persons in other particulars besides that of rending the Church of England in pieces is enough to justifie and warrant my zeal and courage in such an undertaking And that I may vindicate my self from future aspersions and satisfie the unprejudiced part of the World that it was not bitterness of spirit but a true regard for the honour and reputation of the Protestant Religion that put me upon such meditations I will give you the particular Motives prompting me thereunto which when done I hope I shall find a candid acceptance and favourable opinion in all worthy and generous in all dispassionate and disinterested breasts First then I found the principles from which Nonconformity to the Church does flow and by which they seek to countenance the present Separation not only to be false in themselves but withal bad in their impressions and influences and that after by them people are unsetled and forced to a breach with the Church of England nothing can be proposed to them that proves a firm ground to set their feet upon But many I was going to say most of them run from one opinion to another and that with the very same Arguments and Reasons upon the score of which they parted from us And he that will not come to the publick Church because the Preacher wears a Surplice c. which he can find no express command for from Scripture why within a short space he leaves the Assemblys of the Presbyterians because they own several things as to Church Government which do no ways correspond with the practice of the Apostles whose Churches they say were not subordinate to but independent upon one another And when it may be he hath linked himself with those of the Congregational way as they are pleased to phrase it why the same argument assaults him afresh and drives him into the tents of Munster and the man turns Anabaptist because he finds no explicite command for the administring that Sacrament to infants in all the new Testament And alack let him but with this principle read his Bible often and put such interpretations upon the several texts thereof as his weak judgment and overheated Fancy suggests to him and it is ten to one but his head turns round every Moun and that the man disturbs not only himself but all the Neighbourhood with his constant dissatisfactions Especially if he set out as usually all these men do with that other hopeful Principle that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in matters of Divine Worship and that his power is terminated within the compass of civil things Oh this makes them all Lords and Princes and puts a fulness of power into their hands to shape and fashion what Religion or model of Worship to themselves they please And by vertue of these too pernicious Principles we find some have run into all the absurdities and blasphemies of the Quakers and others have so tired themselves with continual seeking and importunate inquiries after the best way that at last from a downright weariness they have sate down and in great discontent have thrown off all regard to Religion and turned prophane scoffers at it as a thing designed on purpose to puzzle mens brains and disturb the World And when I say this I do not speak without sufficient evidence there are too many proofs of it in this Kingdom and he must be too little conversant either with men or Books that denies it And therefore upon this account I do heartily wish the Subjects of this Realm reduced to the principles of obedience to our excellent Church because I am perswaded that the time they consume in needless enquiries would be spent in fervent devotions in dutiful attendance upon all those Instruments and Methods of Instruction whereby they might learn to govern their lives in those several conditions they are in And certainly had not these foolish principles been started and thereby the minds of easy and more illiterate persons been amused and pestered with idle scruples certainly I say Religion had met with a more universal acceptance and chearful practice than now it does and we might suppose among the Common people what time they were at liberty from their necessary callings would have been spent in heavenly meditations in Zealous prayer or in instructing their Children and Servants in the Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion or in reading such good books as were designed not to feed the Fancy but to convince the Judgment and proportionably to raise the Affections to God and Christ to his holy Laws and excellent directions And though I know some men will except against all this I say and offer in apposition to it that many of the Members of their Sepurated Churches have continued so from their first admission without starting and that therefore this is no argument against their principles why to this I answer that mens continuance amongst them flows not from their Principles themselves which certainly betray men to all imaginable sickleness and uncertainty but from some other considerations as either from an extreme love and esteem for the Person who is their supposed Pastor or else from prudential considerations of those reproaches that such a slitting humour does expose them to or some other things of a worse nature which though I could yet I list not now to name And therefore I do entreat all those into whose hands this small Treatise shall come to consider well with themselves the danger of admitting such Principles into their belief for I am confident did most of those well meaning People who by vertue of these very Doctrines are drawn over to them understand how destructive they are to all Churches whatsoever how injurious to the Rights of Princes rebbing them of more than half their power and what additions they make by them to God's Laws imposing such things upon the belief and practice of others yea and under the notion of the unalterable Government of the Lord Christ as were not thought of for above fifteen hundred years together among the Churches of God in any part of the Wold further did they consider how these Principles that will be content with nothing but an absolute determined way of Worship from Scripture take away all power of tolerating or bearing with any man of a contrary Mind because after a fulness of perswasion that such a thing is the only way of Christ a man cannot think well of nor consequently suffer if he have a power in his hands any man to enjoy any opinion contrary thereunto because it is to give him leave to damn himself when it is in the others power very much to prevent it I say were these with many other considerations well understood by the Common people they would not I am perswaded run
in such numbers from our Churches nor be so easily beguiled into a belief of things so every ways wanting a Foundation in Holy Writ nor would they make such vile and unworthy reflections upon a Church whose Foundation is laid and superstructure built by the Laws of Reason and rightly understood Religion in a word which imposes nothing upon our practice that is forbidden in Holy Scripture And I hope there is so much weight in this one Reason I have given for my zeal against the present Separation as may apologize for me and satisfy any modest man that it is not from any Principle of despight to God his Religion or his people that I have ventured upon such a work as this But I have yet more to say Further then I took notice that Non-conformity had a very evil aspect upon Governours and Government I found no men so ready to embrace any stories whereby their superiours were scornfully reflected upon or vilely represented as these man were nor any men more hasty in spreading these tales further abroad and wondring with my self that men pretending to so extreme a strictness and pleading that strictness as a sign of their being the best of Saints should fail in so known and obvious a duty as obedience to Authority is I looked back into Ages past and God knows found the same temper and spirit among those who were the authors and beginners of this desolating Separation I found one Goodman an Exile in Queen Maryes days and one of the Antesignani of the Nonconformists vindicating Wyat's rebellion asserting in Print that his cause was God's and that none but Traytors could accuse him of Treason and after this I find Queen Elizabeth maligned by White Rowland and Hawkins three of the Brotherhood and by no means must she be thought any other ways than an evil Princess spoiling God's people and extolling vanity and this averred before Grindall then Bishop of London And if I should quote what hath dropt from these mens pens since to the slandering of God's Anointed this Preface would swell into too great a bulk Now I must confess this thing very much troubled me and stirred my passions to see that in which our happiness is so apparently wrapt up and by vertue of which we safely possess the fruits of our own labours made the scorn of boys and raw servants and the wise and prudently enacted Laws brought to the Barr many times by a company of silly women who are led captive and laden with many lusts and according to their deep and profound judgment voted obligatory or else nulled and voided And in good earnest this appears to me the ready way to the Nations ruine as it naturally prepares men to serve their turn upon the established Government when ever opportunity is put into their hands And no man need blush in asserting this when he considers who they were that in the beginning of the late unnatural War readily took the Alarm and clothed themselves with courage and armour too in order to sight the Lord's battel against the Mighty but such persons as had been brought up under and disciplin'd by such Teachers as were known notoriously inclinable to the Principles of Separation And he that considens with what pleasure some men do reflect upon the Priviledges and enjoyments the late War gave them before his Majesties return and how ready they are to suggest to young and unimpressed minds that those were days wherein men might be as good as they would and wherein scandalous Ministers were turned out with many other things of the like nature he must needs infer from thence that many of these people are so far from repenting of what was then done that they could willingly wade through the same paths of bloud to be reinstated in their former priviledges again Now truly I must needs say that I cannot think the Kingdom safe so long as such things are propagated and propagated they will be so long as men believe their Prince an enemy to the pure Doctrines and Ordinances of Jesus Christ and themselves persecuted for complyance with Christ's Laws in opposition to the superstitious Impositions of their Governours For considering the weakness of men and the slender improvement the education of most give them how can we imagine Magistrates should have their due honour and esteem from such persons who are made to believe that they symbolize with Antichrist and are Friends to the cause and Interest of the Beast No alack such crafty insinuations as these waste all the Principles of Loyalty in easy and credulous mens breasts they imbitter and poyson their Spirits so that they spit nothing but fire in the face of all well regulated Constitutions and there is nothing but the fear of imprisonment or confiscation of Goods or the loss of life that keeps these men thus set on fire from offering violence to the Thrones of Princes It was this that made Henry the Third and the Fourth of France fall under the bloudy hands of two Assassinates and though our modern Enthusiasts and the Papists widely differ in many things yet in a mistaken furious zeal and resolute enterprizes for the mistaken cause of God and his Church they have been both very much to blame and incurred such a censure as thanks be to God the regular Sons of the Church of England can wash their hands from Now this being very plain and notorious I thought I could not do a better work one whereby I might better serve my Prince and Countrey than by endeavouring to reconcile men to a Church wherein they learn the duties of humility and meekness of modesty and candour of spirit of submission and obedience of jealousie and suspicion of their own private opinions when they stand in competition with the publick Judgment and Wisdom of the Nation For these are vertues hugely serviceable to the interest of Government and preserve such a peace amongst men as gives great encouragement to industry and labour These are Vertues that render Religion amiable and lovely and no doubt the more Professors are possessed of them the more do they engage standers by not only to an admiration of but an hearty complyance with that Religion that cancels no worthy Law that is made in pursuit of the ends of Government but on the other side lays obligations upon every man to keep his place denouncing severely against those who either curse their Princes in their hearts or speak evil of Dignities with their tongues And let me speak freely That I am very much mistaken if a return to so good a spirit as this is going to Egypt again is siding with the Beast against God and his Christ is renouncing the Kingship of Christ which words by whom made use of and to what purposes we can easily tell If this be a forsaking of Christ and giving up his cause and going into Babylon I pray God I may continue in this Babylon all the days of my life and then