from them both And if all other pretences for the continuance of a Schism were removed perhaps this founded in the difference of Opinion would be made a new one by our Dissenters for many of them reproach as they imagine some eminent Divines of the Church of England by imposing on them the name of Arminians Their Doctrines of Solifidianism Imputative Righteousness the Instruments of Justification c. though founded in mistakes and wrong acceptations of words were by many of them imbib'd and receiv'd with that confidence and assurance that they had not patience to hear them explain'd much less doubted of and if there were no Schisms occasioned by them in those times of their Reformation for it would puzzle even a good Ramist to Analyze the several subdivided Sects and their Opinions which that great confusion produc'd Yet how they aspers'd revil'd and persecuted one another upon that account is well known if not Mr. B. can inform any Man who desires it more fully 4. Not only difference of Opinion in matters of Religion but also in the Civil Government is sufficient to make a separation and division in the Church especially if any Authority in Ecclesiastical Affairs be assigned to the supreme Magistrate for that neither the Papists nor Presbyterians will allow him It hath been often observed that Rebellion in the State is usually attended with a Schism in the Church Jeroboam of old introduc'd Idolatry to continue his Revolt lest Union in one Religion and Communion in one Church should restore Loyalty in the Kingdom The Feuds betwixt particular Families arising from the ambitious Emulation of the Prince's favour The Faction between the Covenanters and the Anti-Covenanters in Scotland The Attempts of the Anabaptists in Germany and the Fifth Monarchy-men here in England to omit the most famous Faction between the Guelphes and Gibellines both Parties of the same Religion and other ancient and forreign Instances I shall give you one Example sufficient alone to prove my Assertion The Mountain Conventiclers in Scotland who having under pretence of Conscience separated themselves from the establish'd Episcopal Church and also subdivided themselves from the Presbyterian Dissenters followed select Teachers of their own which being prosecuted according to the Laws of that Country King Charles the Merciful indulged some of them and licensed them to Preach which when he had done and they accepted they who before could by no Authority Laws and Penalties be restrained from flocking to them in multitudes quite deserted them and refused to hear them Preach Such was their pretense of Conscience but indeed Zeal for the Covenant aversion to the King 's Monarchical Authority and Supremacy c. So that if there were not one Rite Ceremony Vestment Gesture c. if it were possible retained or used in our Church nor even the Liturgy it self nor any Constitutions and Canons in force Yet the Old Kirk and Common-wealth Principles beginning to be revived again and the Question being not as some short-sighted Clergy-men imagine about Rites Ceremonies Liturgy Vestments Constitutions and such like small and inconsiderable things but whether a King or Common-wealth if a King from whence shall his Power be derived how limited c There needs no more than that Opinion of the King's Supremacy and that Adherence and Loyalty to Monarchy which the Church of England was formerly renowned for to cause the Dissenters all which are against the King's Supremacy and many of them Men of Common-wealth Principles whose Fingers itch after the Crown and Church-Revenues to separate and continue their Schism from the Church the Quarrel being really and truly more Political than Religious and of this the War against and Execution of King Charles the First the Fanatick-Plot against the Life of King Charles the Second which perhaps they will say was the Action of but some few particular Persons and the Carriage Conversation Writings and Actings of the N. Cs. in general in those times ever since especially this and the last year the transactions lately in Scotland and their precipitate abolishing of the King's Supremacy there are sufficient evidences to any Man who is in his right Senses 5. Different persuasions concerning Ecclesiastical Discipline See◠〈◊〉 Enâ—â—â—â— Noâ—â—â— forâ—â—â— undâ—â—â— K. Câ— c. The Advocate of the Non-conformists as a reason of their Recusancy objects against Lay-Civilian's decreeing Persons to be excommunicated which he calls the exercising the Power of the Keys though this objection is absurdly urged by any Man who asserts the Presbyterian Model by Lay-governing Elders but the removal of this would do little to their satisfaction Neither would what the Author of the Healing Attempt proposes viz. In 〈◊〉 A condescending to settle the Power of Orders and Jurisdiction on Presbyters as well as Bishops according to the Learned Archbishop Usher 's Model c. satisfie them so long as there remain any Persons in our Church superior to them in degree the Power of Ordination and the exercise of Jurisdiction for that is not only inconsistent with their affected Parity but irreconcileable with that Vice gerency which they pretend as well as the Pope to derive from and hold under Christ as the Supreme Head of the Church Thus the Author of the Survey of Discipline tells them pag. 440 441. See 〈◊〉 Doâ—â—ame'â—â— fenceâ— the Sâ—â—â— c. 〈◊〉 6. p. 〈◊〉 They had said that your Discipline is the Kingdom of Christ wherein your Presbyters hold as it were Christ's Sceptre That the Question between the Bishops and You is about no less matter than this whether Jesus Christ shall be King or no c. Or more truly and plainly whether they shall be his Vice-Roys and as Popes over several Parishes Lord it over their Flocks As for Lay-Chancellors tho it is some deviation from the Primitive Times when Bishops with the assistance of their Colleges of Presbyters managed all Affairs yet the Christian Magistrate afterwards committing many Causes to Episcopal Audience Silvanus the Famous Bishop of Troas delegated them with approbation Soc. 〈◊〉 cap. 〈◊〉 to the hearing of Lay-Men However I believe all the Clergy and Lay-Men living in the Communion of the Church of England would be glad the Reverend Fathers of it by a personal execution of the Episcopal Office with their Cathedral College in all cases of Conscience Heresie Schism Crime and Scandal for their own sakes if not for their Church's would remove that Objection As for the Learned Archbishop Usher's Model every body knows it was not his judgment but invented as an expedient to prevent things from coming to the utmost extremities that it doth not settle any Power of Orders as is insinuated upon Presbyters or of Jurisdiction but what they have already and may exercise as to the substance of it by vertue of their Order our Rubricks confirm'd by Statute and our Canon besides that Model excludes the lately invented Lay-Elders and is as little reconcileable to the Congregational way into which most
enjoyned the Congregation in the ordinary Publick Worship prescribed in the Church of England Will the removal of them take away the Vizor with which Formalists Hypocrites Wicked and Prophane Men cover themselves Wicked and Prophane Men as the words themselves imply are bare-fac'd Sinners and wear no Vizor and as for Formality and Hypocrisie they were never since the Ancient Pharisees used by any more than by our Modern Sectarists nor ever so much in esteem and fashion as since the number of those who under that disguise decry Ceremonies made them bold and confident Had kneeling at Prayers and standing at the Creed and Gospel been such an excellent Vizor it would not be prudence in us to abolish them especially for nothing for many of the Dissenters who need a Vizor as well as others would either use them in their Conventicles or come over to us themselves merely for the benefit of them but suppose what it is almost ridiculous to suppose viz. that our Author had herein spoken Truth and Reason yet the removal of Ceremonies would effect little as to that for we find that the Dissenters who seldom kneel at Prayers or use the Creed and have no Gospel have yet under the Vizor of purity preciseness and tenderness of Conscience done abundantly beyond all that ever Ceremonies can or could pretend to neither need we to strip our Church Offices of these and run from the little remainders of decency remaining in use in our Churches into down-right rusticity and more than Corinthian rudeness in our Publick Worship in hopes that then Drunkards 〈…〉 Swearers Whoremongers and such like will be known to be what they are a mere Herd of Brutes It would be a foolish and too costly an experiment and an extravagant instance of our levity and indiscretion but no discovery unless of that which every body knows already or if any Man wants farther satisfaction herein let him repair to our Author who can tell him such wonderful things concerning Rites Ceremonies c. as all the World never dream'd on before nor any Man of but ordinary Sense and Judgment will believe now 5. Mischiefs in promoting a mighty increase of profaneness and all kind of wickedness Pag◠〈…〉 1. Profaneness in the outragious contempt of holy things The tautologies impertinencies improper inferences and untrue assertions of our Author's Pamphlet are too many to be consider'd or remark'd but a Man must either have a conceit of himself like to that of his own Infallibility or else he must presume wonderfully upon the simplicity dulness and ignorance of his Readers before he comes to put such down right contradictions upon them Him who all this while he hath bitterly inveigh'd against as a Bigot and Zealot he now makes a profane and outragious contemner of holy Things whereas Zeal when taken in ill part for Superstition and profaneness are and always were esteemed the two contrary extremes and vices on either side Religion There is scarce any thing in Religion that hath escaped the scorn and reproach of blind Zealots The Ordinance of Preaching the Lords Day the Scripture our Holy Religion and Jesus Christ himself all have been struck at To scorn and reproach Preaching Scripture the Lord's Day c. hath been always hitherto look'd upon as a Sign of a Profane and not of a Zealous Person and this Author hath shewn us no reason to change our Sentiments but suppose his words to be true hence we may observe 1st That a Schism caused by a difference in belief though erroneous can never be reunited by the abolition of Ceremonies for the cause remaining the effect would continue 2ly That the apprehensions of Men being so various and their judgments so discrepant a comprehension without a compliance in things indifferent and a forbearance with Men in their particular Opinions can never be effected but these being once supposed it may follow as things now are 3ly That there are divers others as extravagant Zealots as our Author whose Notions are altogether impracticable who encrease the Schism and widen the Separations in the Church under pretence of making propositions for a comprehension and should not be regarded till they learn more discretion and moderation than at once to ask the abolishing of all Ceremonies the exercise of jurisdiction 〈…〉 and power of Orders and the pulling down the whole Constitutions of our Church The Ordinance of Preaching 〈…〉 21. The constant serious diligent performing of this would spread knowledge amongst the People to the prejudice of humane impositions in Divine Worship They would see what light things they are in the Service of God 〈…〉 43. The Constitutions of the Church of England are so far from discouraging or obstructing constant serious diligent Preaching as our Author would insinuate that on the contrary she requires and enjoyns it so that in that sense even the Ordinance of Preaching may properly be called an Humane Imposition neither do we of her Communion if Passionate Malicious Schismatical Sinister-designing Railing go not as often it hath under that notion fear any prejudice thereby ensuing to any Impositions in use in our Divine Worship We wish all Men in our Communion and in theirs too were more knowing pious discreet honest and conscientious than all the Preaching of Dissenters and our Author with all others of his Opinion is ever like to make them We would be glad all Men did see what light things all our Impositions and Ceremonies both are in the Service of God hoping then they would be better satisfied both of the lawfulness and decency of them and if their prejudices and interests which with ignorance are the great causes of our Schisms and Separations should not hinder would approve of them and conform to the use of them for their lightness adds to their weight and value and their easiness and fewness to their Commendation for those Impositions and Ceremonies which were otherwise allowable as were the Jewish when their numbe like theirs makes them weighty Matt. 〈…〉 become a burthen too heavy to be born As for Preaching it must be confess'd to be far less necessary now at least in a converted Nation than when the World was Pagan And whereas the Papists have resolved all publick religious Duties into Prayers and the Dissenters have run into the other extreme and placed them in long Preachments the Church of England hath herein as in most other things retained the golden Meane and useth both and tho frequency is more necessary to the former yet the latter is not to be neglected but when it excludes Catechizing the change is made for the worse and indeed were that most useful way of instruction of both the young and ignorant much used in the Primitive Church and prescribed by our own revived throughly performed and duly frequented Can. 〈…〉 61. as it would be far more difficult to the Teacher so it would be far more beneficial to the People than Preaching The
of our Modern Presbyterians seeing themselves supplanted by the Independents have degenerated as the Episcopacy by Law Established and therefore would be little satisfactory to the Dissenters or available to the effecting a re-union I might add that their insisting only upon Power of Orders and Jurisdiction the two chief Prerogatives and distinguishing Characters of Bishops no otherways necessary to the discharge of the Ministerial Function in a Parochial Congregation than as by our Church prescribed and by our Laws allowed and commanded is an evidence that it is not conscience which troubles them but the old contention which shall be greatest that their desire of the multiplication of Bishops or rather the Consecration of Chorepiscopi to the number of the quondam Rural Deans must be supposed to proceed from hopes of their advancement at least to some of those many small Sees or from some worse design As for the words of the Disciplinarian we may see by them how far the Presbyterian Principles when asserted in their proper Latitude will extend and that the Prosecution of them would abolish not only Canonical Ordination that Spiritual and Paternal Oversight of both Pastors and Flock which would tend to the Peace Unity and Good of the whole but also the Episcopal Order it self which immediately succeeded to the Administration of the Apostles and hath continued in the Government of the Primitive and Universal Church of Christ in all Ages from their Deaths till the last Century As it would be a very bold attempt to presume to abolish remove or weaken the Primitive and Catholick Government of the Church by Episcopacy which was evidently at least Jure Apostolico Established in the first Ages of it to introduce the novel humane invention of Presbytery So it would not be a little imprudent and unsafe in regard of State Government since it would undermine the Monarchy by the very same means and methods as Popery viz. by depriving the King of his Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons by elevating the Presbytery above him by exalting every little Mas John to be a Popeling and investing him with the same absolute Authority in his Parish as the Pope of Rome challenges over the World by an exemption of the Presbyterian Teachers from the Civil Jurisdiction making their assembling of Synods to depend upon their own and not the Prince's pleasure and by the Preaching their Doctrins of the lawfulness and their obligations to propagate and defend their Religion and Kirk-Government by Arms will certainly by a gradual diminution of the King's Prerogative and Authority lessen his Power to that degree that whensoever they please to exert their democratical Principles and animate the Populace easily influenced under pretence of Conscience with the hopes of plunder into such an Insurrection as may reduce this Kingdom if not the three to the same or a worse condition than they were in in 1641. c. And thereby the Government of both Church and State be swallowed up in Anarchy and Confusion out of which if they become not a prey to some Puissant Foreign Enemy the vast expences of Blood and Treasure the Nation will be put to the many divisions and separate interests will be in it the contentions of the Schismaticks which shall be uppermost c. will hinder a re-establishment of Monarchy or a settlement of any form of Government more perfect than that which is most agreeable to the Presbyterian and Independent Discipline of a Democracy which amongst so fickle and unconstant People must needs be short-liv'd and during its continuance by reason of its own proper inconveniencies and inherent defects is but a degree above confusion III. The Schism which the Dissenters have made from the Church of England whatsoever may be pretended was not really made upon the account of any thing contained in our Liturgy any Ceremonies in use in our Publick Worship or any subscriptions enjoyn'd by our Laws as in themselves contrary to their Judgments in case of Conscience as appears because 1st None of the Dissenters have hitherto with any cogent Arguments proved any of them unlawful and therefore can have no reasonable cause or lawful Warrant to either make or continue a Schism if it be said They doubt of the lawfulness of some of them I answer That is not enough to excuse the Schism which unless it be to avoid the doing of that which is evidently sinful is always unlawful and criminal The Obligations to Order Peace Unity Charity and Communion with the Church of Christ to obedience to our Ecclesiastical Superiours their Constitutions and Canons and to our Civil Governors and their legal establishments in indifferent things and the circumstantials of Religion are derived from Divine Authority of an Eternal Nature and so far binding as not to admit of a Relaxation unless plain and notorious sin be positively commanded for otherwise to separate would be both to omit a certain duty for fear of being guilty of a possible mistake and to commit an evident and aggravated sin of many pernicious consequences to avoid the transgression of a single Precept either not existent or at least not evident Doubts under pretence of Conscience are usually made to shroud a perverse disobedient humour or some sinister design not willing to appear above-board Thus a Man being called to give an evidence which he knows will endanger his Friends Interest Liberty or Life not willing either to damnifie him or perjure himself as a mean expedient to prevent both he pretends that he did not hear the words or that he doth not remember them So here the Dissenter not being able to prove any thing contained in our Liturgy or the innocent and decent gestures of standing and kneeling observed in the use of it for nothing else is enjoyned the Congregation in our Publick Worship unlawful nor willing to own the true causes of his Schism pretends he doubts but the unhappiness of it is that in the former case the answer doth not avoid the perjury nor in the latter the doubts take away the Hypocrisie and guilt of Schism and are no more than mere evasions for there is nothing but hath or may be doubted or at least be pretended so to be and if every such pretence should be allowed nothing can be commanded nor no order decency or uniformity observed 2. The greatest part by far of the Dissenters are such as never examined or seriously considered our Liturgy Articles Rites Ceremonies Constitutions or Customs or any other of their Teachers pretences for their separation a considerable number of them are such as never saw nor heard them and are not qualified either to read or understand them and scarce any of them can say in their own defence that they have sought any satisfaction at home by reading impartially such Treatises as the Divines of our Church have written to explain defend and vindicate them or abroad from the several Pastors under whose care and charge Providence and the
THE CHURCH of ENGLAND AND THE Continuation of the Ceremonies THEREOF Vindicated from the Calumnies of several late PAMPHLETS More particularly that Entitled The Vanity Mischief and Danger of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God Subscribed By P. M. a Minister of the Church of England To which are added Some farther Considerations of a Re-union of the Dissenters with the Church of England Wherein the true Causes of the Schism its Continuance and the means to put an end to it c. are proposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Paul 1 Cor. 14.40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conc. Nicaen 1. Can. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Ignat. Epist ad Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ad Philadelph London Printed for S. Cook and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London 1680. To the READER AMongst those many Factious and Schismatical Pamphlets which in these licentious times have passed the Press I chose after a considerable time's neglect at vacant hours to bestow some considerations on our Author 's because subscrib'd as is pretended by a Minister of the Church of England thinking thereby both to have had an opportunity of vindicating some innocent Ceremony against his ignorant or malicious Misrepresentation of it and that the appearing in our Holy Mother the Church of England's quarrel when beset with Domestick as well as Foreign Enemies forsaken by many of her formerly pretended Friends and risen up against by her undutiful and unnatural Sons howsoever weakly her Cause should be managed would yet be an argument of my sincere and constant duty and affection The Title of his Pamphlet is harsh bitter and malicious and intimates its Author to be either some ill designing Schismatick or blind Zealot bigotted to opposition and actuated as a Tool by a more intriguing Head however it might well be expected that such a bold Front should be followed with great attempts to demonstrate what that so largely intimates viz. That vain mischievous and dangerous Ceremonies are continued prescribed and used in the Divine Worship of the Church of England But upon a perusal his Pamphlet appeared to be a malicious and railing Invective an heap of undecent passionate and virulent expressions a fardle of spightful suggestions founded upon false and precarious Principles He hath taken leave with a supercilious pride to censure and Pythagorically to condemn and that in unbecoming terms all our Ceremonies without ever telling us either what he means by them and in which acceptation of that equivocal Word he desires to be understood or proving all or any of them to be unlawful or undecent And tho he hath no where asserted yet he hath every where presupposed that nothing may be lawfully used in the Worship of God or imposed on the Clergy or Congregation by Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions as matter of decency and order which is not positively and expresly commanded in the Text of the Scriptures which Position is altogether unsound and precarious and sufficiently without other arguments overthrown by that one Maxim That which is not prohibited is conceived to be allowed I always both lik'd and lov'd the Constitution of our English Monarchy as being such a middle betwixt a Despotick and Titular Government as seems to have laid the most probable and stable Foundations of a mutual and lasting happiness of both Prince and People It gives to the King a Prerogative and Supremacy large enough to make him the Father of his Country and to the Subject more liberties privileges and security than any other Monarchy much more inferior Government known to me always enough and unless more loyal in many instances too much and therefore I have with not a little admiration and regret often beheld some in the highest Station whose Interest as well as Duty it hath been to support it connive at encourage nay concur with its Enemies in the pulling of it down And others who live more happily and securely under it than they can under any Aristocracy much more Democracy imagining that they make not figure great enough in the Government of this Monarchy conspire the translation of it into a Common-wealth hoping to be more conspicuous when set at an higher Post as the reward of their intrigues and merits And I think the Church of England as already by Law Establish'd to be the best constituted of any now Visible the like excellent moderation between two extremes may be observed in her Publick Worship avoiding the multitude of needless Observancies and Ceremonies used in the Church of Rome inclining to Superstition and the rustical undecencies and clownish disorders introduced by some pretended Reformers tending no less to confusions and profaneness And tho I will not assert that our present Liturgy cannot admit of a greater accuracy in some Collects and Offices yet I believe it to be now the most perfect extant that there is nothing in it but what any Man how pious and conscientious soever if humble peaceable and duly inform'd without scruple may comply with and joyn in and that the making any considerable alterations in it would lay a new Stumbling-block before the Papists and make them more averse from coming over to our Church and scandalize many of our own Communion by our levity needless and frequent changing and modelling even our Religious Worship and Divine Offices to the humour of designing Persons and a State-Cabal and that all the alterations that may or can be made in it and our Constitutions both will never answer their purpose viz. effect a Comprehension and Re-union of the Dissenters with our Church for they as long as any thing remains will never want a pretence for their Separation And to an unconcern'd Spectator it cannot but appear strange and unaccomptable to see some Persons of the highest Orders and Degrees in the Church so zealous and impatient to make such alterations in its Liturgy Customs and Legal Establishments as must in all reason precipitate the subversion of it and to sacrifice its Honour Rites and Constitutions to the Pride of a few designing Persons so divided among themselves that they could never agree in any thing but in a joint enmity and opposition to the Government of the Church and State who herein aim not so much at an Union of themselves with us as at the destruction of our Ancient Hierarchy to make way to establish their novel Discipline this experience might have taught us But if the Persons concern'd will not be caution'd neither by the avowed Principles of their Adversaries nor by their Practices especially for this last half Century it will be easie without the trouble of erecting a Scheme to predict that when the Supreme Order of our Church-men shall be acknowledged useless by a publick concession of an equality of degrees and an identity of that Order with the hitherto and that truly supposed inferior then their Superiorities Privileges and Revenues will in a very little time expose them so prevalent a temptation to the Pride
of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God Humbly proposed to the Present Convocation c. THat An English-man never knows when he is well is a Proverb which we use at home and wherewith we are reproach'd abroad and that too justly to be denyed applicable both to single Persons and conjunct Societies the tendency of Affairs in this Nation since the Year 1640. beyond all possibility of contradiction doth evince The Subjects of this Kingdom through the Grants of former Kings and by virtue of the good Laws by them enacted and made were better secured in their Rights Properties and Persons than any other Nation of the Universe Nor were they less happy as Christians living in the bosom of a Church whose Faith was Catholick Government Apostolical whose Publick Liturgy Constitutions and Canons in perfection excell'd those of any of the Reformed or any other then Visible Church whose Clergy were esteem'd the wonder of the World Hence the envy of the Roman and the admiration of the Reformed Churches Such was then the condition of the English Church and State that it was hard to imagine what could be thought wanting to compleat their happiness unless perhaps you will say their being sensible of it But not knowing when they were well they by God's just permission actuated by the Romish Emissaries who took advantage of the ambition and covetous Inclinations of some and of the discontented and restless Spirits of others involv'd the Nation in a most odious and unnatural Rebellion the Violences Cruelties and Murthers which accompany'd and the Oppressions Usurpations Tyrannies Plunderings and Miseries which follow'd it are too many to be numbred too woful to be rehearsed and such as any Man in his right Wits would for ever be caution'd by to avoid as the worst of evils any actions means or methods whereby the like may again be brought upon us And yet as if Men were led by destiny or guided by those ludicrous Spirits which our Author supposes play little tricks in disturb'd houses and others learned in those matters think set Men together by the ears as they do Cocks and Dogs for their own diversion they seem industriously to lay the Foundations of future troubles to return to 1640. and to be willing to react the same Tragedy and that before the Epilogue is ended and the Actors all gone off the Stage Hither tend most of our new Scriblers and their Pamphlets some devesting the King of all Inherent Sovereign Authority Supremacy and Prerogative c. Others representing our Monarchs of the last Race as the most Monstrous and Wicked Villains that ever liv'd and under the pretence of Secrets relating things not only incredible in themselves but if supposed yet impossible to be known to any but Pimps and Persons if any such there be of a more odious Character thereby endeavouring to possess the People with an ill opinion of the Persons of Kings in order to prepare them for the dissolution of the Monarchy Essays tending to the same purpose have been also made against the Church designing Men having unjustly slander'd her Divines as inclined to Popery and popishly affected till in King James's time to their no less glory than hazard they appeared the greatest if not the only Champions in the Cause of our Religion and the Laws and thereby made all future calumnies of that sort appear too unjust and malicious to be used How is it to be wished that our Enemies malice could have had an end But alass though they thus were forc'd to change the Object yet they have retained the Vice Nothing will please them they will never be quiet now our Rites and Ceremonies must be illegitimated our Liturgy circumcised our Subscriptions Constitutions and Canons all abolished to gratifie those who if all these things were done would be as little satisfy'd as now they are Our Author their Adversary betrays too much Passion before the things themselves and their consequences are well considered he is all upon the fret and out of all patience to be pulling down the whole Ancient and therefore venerable the well compact and firm Fabrick of the Church of England which having been of full proof against all the assaults of our Foreign Roman Foes must now be undermined by her domestick Enemies and what is yet more intolerable her own pretended Friends by an easie surrender of her outworks make her main strength less tenable and precipitate her ruin Our Author like a Man full of design or big with some conceit of his own or News heard from others breaks out and with abundance of concern and passion thus vents himself It is the wonder and grief of all good English Protestants Pag◠〈…〉 that such an unaccountable frenzie should possess and hurry some hot Clergy Men amongst us with a blind zeal against the good proposals of Peace prepared by the Kings Commissioners in the Jerusalem Chamber If by all good English Protestants he means the Men of the Church of England as by Law Established to whom that Name borrowed from the Lutherans who at Spire in the Year 1529. protested against the Corruptions and Usurpations of the Church of Rome whose Communion they then forsook more properly than to any other People in England belongs both because they are an Establish'd and Visible Church and because all Sectaries whatsoever among us hold more in common with the Papists than they do then his assertion is too general to be true Many and perhaps the most and wisest admire what an unaccountable frenzie should hurry some hot Church-Men amongst us with a blind Zeal against that Pious Good and above all extant the most Perfect Liturgy to which and all things therein contained and prescribed they have all once at the least declared as they then pretended their unfeigned assent and consent or against that Government in Church which as far as we can understand by the Scriptures was Instituted by our Saviour which the Ancients assure us was propagated together with the Christian Faith by the Apostles and their Successors and which the continual Succession of the Catholick Church of Christ for now more than 1600 Years hath delivered to us and those wholsome Constitutions which the Wisdom and Experience of the Learned and Grave Fathers of our own Church relation being had to those of elder times also have produced and the Civil Laws of the Land confirmed unto us As for His Majesties design in giving a Commission to some of our Reverend Fathers and Divines to prepare things for Peace and calling of a Convocation c. Who ever blamed it though as to the Method it must be supposed that the unseasonable precipitancy and preposterous Zeal of some in the Late House of Commons to gratifie their dissenting Friends by an Act of Toleration hath prevented even those few good Fruits which they who are acquainted with that sort of People expected from it but of this afterwards I shall here only add that this would be too
choose Men to sit in Convocation c. The possibility of it if the King should be so ill advised as to give consent to it I shall not much dispute remembring that a Parliament in King Henry the Eighth's Reign surnamed the Almighty-Parliament and some since have de facto done such strange things in annulling transferring Titles Rights Claims Possessions and Inheritances c. without regard to Superiour Laws as argue Infallibility and Arbitrary Power except in the Persons of Popes and Kings to be neither absurd nor disallowable I shall only take leave to say that the Clergy are as competent Judges of the Parliament-men as the Knights and Burgesses of the Convocation-men that whatever alterations they may make de facto in our Liturgy or Ceremonies without the Clergy yet it is absolutely impossible to make an Union without them I need not add that such alterations would be a taking away that Liberty of Conscience from the establish'd Church which is given to all Dissenters for it is to be supposed that our Parliament-men if not infallible are yet wiser than at the suggestion of this Furioso to attempt the removing the ancient Land-marks and constitutions of the Nations Government such violent Convulsions of the Monarchy must needs both presage and produce a dissolution of it All the Art and Power in the World cannot make trifles in the Worship of God seem matters of importance to them that rellish heavenly things 〈…〉 6. The conformable Clergy and Laity of the Church of England knowing many things to be lawful and innocent and judged by our Superiours to tend to Order Decency and Devotion use them as such and cannot so properly be said to make them seem matters of importance as they who pretend Conscience for disobedience in the use of things no where prohibited and therefore indifferent and disturb all peace and Unity in the Church to introduce their own confusions and divisions 〈…〉 7. What Trumpery are Habits various Gestures and Postures to a Man that is swallowed up in the contemplation of the infinite Majesty of the Glorious God This Man is too wise as being wise above what is written A modest and well-bred Man would never have used such rude and vilifying terms of such things as the Almighty God was once pleased to appoint and command in his own Worship If any say those sacerdotal Habiliments and Levitical Impositions are not obligatory to us Christians I say no more are the Judicial Laws given by Moses and yet if any Man shall therefore say they are unjust absurd foolish or ridiculous I think God the Supreme Legislator is reflected on and concern'd in his Honour and the person so saying must be supposed immoral bold and prophane If our Author should be censured by this Paragraph he would be thought not only a Phanatique but an Enthusiast Would this contemplative Politico have the Priest officiating lose his Body as well as his Mind and Wits for otherwise he must of necessity use such Trumpery as Habits Gestures and Postures and if they in use are lawful as our Author saying nothing to the contrary must in all reason be supposed to allow why not those as well as others especially since they are few Grave Decent Ancient Naturalized and by Law established Innovations are always hurtful and sometimes dangerous always tend towards and sometimes precipitate dissolution 3. It is unreasonable to continue Ceremonies Ibid. After all the Wisdom and Power of Imposers can do the judgments of Men will differ And I can say with equal truth and reason After all that Abolishers can do Pag. 〈…〉 the judgments of Men will differ He proceeds It is as possible to make their Hair all of one colour their Bodies of the same proportion their Faces all alike as their Judgments to be the same in Rites and Ceremonies To which I may add or in any thing else Must nothing therefore be continued If every thing must be abolished concerning which Men have different Opinions not only Rites and Ceremonies but our Creeds and Sacraments nay our Houses and our Bibles which gave occasion to great diversities of Opinions and some Heresies must be abolished and burnt not only University Habits Notes of Degrees and Church Vestments but all manner of Clothes must be left off and if our Author's inference were pursued home it would abolish his own dear Corps As for that Rule Ibid. Nothing but what is necessary should be imposed as terms of Communion to understand it aright we must first enumerate those things which are enjoined the Members of the Church of England and they are That they should duly frequent their Parish-Church be present at and join in the Publick Prayers and Offices of the Church with reverence and attention hear the Church Homilies or other Sermons read or preach'd and receive the Holy Communion at the least thrice in a Year That they should bring their Children to the Font to be baptized to the Church to be Catechized and to the Bishop to be Confirm'd I know nothing else required of any person as necessary to their holding Lay-communion with it and these I think to be both few and such as are generally necessary to Salvation What is meant by Imposition of things as Terms of Communion when spoken if properly it may be so of persons here born and bred is not so easily understood It is true the Church assumes as her part a maternal care to instruct and educate her Children in her Bosom Whereas that Expression Imposition of things as Terms of Communion seems to relate properly either to Foreiners or Converts presupposing them Professors of some other Religion and She treating with them and offering them conditions of admittance to her Communion and this if such Foreiners are already received into the Catholick Church by Baptism with us is done by vertue of the Communion of Saints upon their freely uniting themselves with the Congregation of that Parish where they inhabit joying therewith in its Publick Worship and other Churches Offices and if duly qualified their participating of the Sacraments But if a person yet unbaptized and consequently no Christian being made a Convert desires to to be received into the Communion of this Church it is requisite that he make profession of the Christian Faith contained in the Apostles Creed desire and receive Baptism What else can be understood by Imposing Terms of Communion The Prescriptions Rules and Constitutions of the Church of England are all directed to those already in her Communion and suppose all Persons born in this Kingdom to be by Baptism made so But if by it is meant that nothing may be prescribed in a Church to be observed by the Members of it which is not necessary to Salvation I cannot believe it to be in that sense true for some things may be not only lawfully but also laudably used and established in a constituted Church which are not absolutely necessary to Salvation A Man
Mischiefs to the Church 2. To the State 3. To Souls 4. To Piety 5. Mischiefs in promoting a mighty increase of Prophaneness and all kind of wickedness 6. Hindring a world of good 1. Pag. 11. Mischiefs to the Church Zeal for Mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of Mind makes them such triflers in Religion that they disregard the great Interests of God and his Church in the World They are not sensible of the desolations of Gods Churches in France Orange Piedmont the Palatinate Ireland c. It might be answer enough for me to say that all this is nothing to the purpose both because the Persecutions and Massacres in these several places were not made upon the account of external Ceremonies but partly upon a secular account and partly upon a religious where then Communion and Doctrines of the Church and not Ceremonies were controverted and because the Church of England doth not impose Ceremonies or Mens devices upon any under penalty of Persecution But I add that these instances disprove what they are brought to confirm for the desolations of God's Churches in France Piedmont c. are so far from proving that Zeal for mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of mind and makes them such triflers in Religion c. That they evince nothing or else the quite contrary that such as raise Persecutions upon the account of Religion are not Men of light Minds or Triflers in it or disregard the Interests of God and his Church though perhaps they prosecute them the wrong way and by undue Mothods for it is evident they if without sinister design pursue what they think to be God's and his Church's Interest more than their own The Kings of Spain weakened their Kingdoms and exhausted their Treasures by Banishing the Moors and erecting the Inquisition and the French King cannot be supposed to gain by the Flight of his Subjects their ceasing to trade and withdrawing their effects neither was it trifling they fled from Do you Sir who in the behalf of the Dissenters clamorous enough without assistance with open jaws set up the Cry of Persecution here in England and call the French King the Duke of Savoy their Armies Officers and Dragoons Triflers What the Church of England-men which this Pamphleteer abusively calls Zealots for these things did in reference to a Popish Successor was agreeable to their Principles both of Loyalty and Honesty They remembred that tho to do evil that good may ensue be a Doctrine received in the Church of Rome yet it is not so in the Church of England They well knew that an Act for Exclusion notwithstanding any Infallibility or Omnipotency a Parliament can pretend to would be still in it self unjust as contrary to the Laws of God and nature and to the Rules of Equity and common Reason void in it self as being contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Land and the very Constitutions of the Monarchy and mischievous in its Events as that which would most certainly have involved these three Kingdoms in a most Bloody Civil War and perhaps have brought an Invasion from abroad in upon us to boot But behold the tender Conscience of our Dissenters they cry out of Persecution upon the Levying a small pecuniary mulct for the frequenting an unnecessary and seditious Conventicle in pursuance of divers Laws made by their own Representatives but would exclude an Hereditary Prince from his undoubted Right and Inheritance by a Law they were no ways authorized to make and involve three Nations at the least in a Bloody War and all the miseries attending it that so they might again swallow up the Crown Lands to maintain the Grandeur of their Hogan-Mogan-Ships in a new Common-Wealth and all this under pretence of the Preservation of the Laws Liberties and the Protestant Religion the name of which it is probable will grow as odious to after Ages as that of Popery is to us by reason of such who shroud all their ill designs and crimes under that usurped affected and abused Notion The Scripture is our only guide of Unity 〈◊〉 Uniformity is deformity and confusion when Men appoint other terms of Ministerial Service and Church-Communion than are prescribed in Gods Word If the Scripture is the only guide of Unity let our Author tell me why his Clients the Presbyterians Independents Quakers c. are not guided into Unity by it since they all have it and pretend to follow it and yet are far enough from Unity The Scripture it is true prescribes and commands Unity but never actually effected it without the interposition of Ecclesiastical Authority as in the Primitive Church Ecclesiastical and Civil as in the Reformation of our Church or Civil as in Spain by the Inquisition in France by Edicts c. That Uniformity is or can be deformity and confusion I shall think to be a contradiction till our Author shews how it can be reconciled Those terms of Communion which he intimates to be prescribed in Gods Word he would do well to shew us or tell us where we may find them if he can They would do more if clearly discovered and demonstrated towards the Union of our differences than a Thousand such railing Pamphlets and the Intrigues and Politick Desings contrived by Male-contents and as hotly pursued by such Tools as he for the involving us into the same miseries that followed upon the last Rebellion 2. 〈◊〉 3. Mischiefs to the State Zeal for Ceremonies begets in Men a contempt of Publick Rights and Boundaries This is a very strange discovery which our Author hath made but it is so incredible that he could not in reason have supposed that we should take it merely upon his Word Therefore he would have done well to have inform'd us farther how a Zeal for Ceremonies begets a contempt of Publick Rights whether by an Univocal or Equivocal Generation If any Man should argue thus This Man is zealous for Ceremonies therefore he contemns Publick Rights and Boundaries would not all Men wonder at the Inference The Consequence will better follow on the contrary side thus This Man disturbs the Peace and Order of the Church and makes no conscience of breaking the Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions and therefore it is probable that out of the same Principle of disobedience and humour of opposition he will contemn Publick Rights and Boundaries and all obligations of the Conscience to obedience set by the Civil Law also But our Author proceeds When they dote so much upon vanities in Worship as to inslave their Consciences and to despise their Christian liberty it is no wonder if they sell at any rate their own and others Civil Rights and Privileges Surely this is spoken of the Inhabitants of the Moon or some Utopian Countries for most Men here have as little Zeal and as much contempt or at least neglect of the daily Service of the Church as our Author supposes them to have of the Publick Rights and Boundaries
To joyn in the Publick Worship of the Establish'd Church though it be supposed there are Ceremonies and what he hath no less maliciously than falsly insinuated vanities in it would not be to despise our Christian liberty but to make use of it Whereas he who scruples it either is weak and thinks he hath no liberty in that case or which is worse is sullen and will not use it But suppose Men despise their Christian Liberty though I understand not how the Members of the Church of England can be said to do so will they sell therefore their Civil Rights and Privileges at any Rate I wonder our Author is not ashamed of such gross non sequitur's As for any indirect means which may be supposed to have been used in Juries Elections Corporations c. I think the Dissenters both in modesty and justice ought to have held their tongues as having by far exceeded the Conformists for as far as I could ever see hear read observe or learn they were much more diligent and industrious used more indirect courses and underwent greater fatigues to uphold and carry on a Faction against the Government and Laws than these some whereof being not so designing they usually drew over to their Party were either to maintain the Right or countermine their attempts The best course which can be taken to recover God's blessing the Church's Union and the Kingdom 's Peace Riches Wealth Strength and Reputation is not the Parliaments or rather some few turbulent Spirits strugling as our Author says with the Prince nor the maintaining an unquiet and never to be satisfied Faction to confront the Government or extort Privileges or Liberties from the King by the diminution of his Prerogative the glorying in the Doctrin of Resistance under the pretence of Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Laws or the encouraging of Dissenters to make the Schism greater for these do but make one Party jealous of another and neglect the Publick Good to oppose each other but a true practical Piety towards God a Loyalty and quiet Subjection to the Prince and a permission of him to manage his own Province a Charity and mutual Love and Unity without interessing our selves in much less hating and separating from one another for our respective private Opinions and an industrious following every one his own lawful Vocation and Employment 3. Mischief to Souls Pag. 1◠For trifles there hath been exercised a mad Tyranny over Mens faculties This is that which cannot be made good for all Men have and since the times of Popery every Man had liberty by the Laws of England to be of any Judgment or Opinion he should think most probable and freedom for his faculties and the exercise of them where they could claim any right to do so in their own Houses and Families nor if a Friend Stranger Traveller or a Neighbor or two happened to be present was there any danger or penalty thereby incurr'd But that every Man under pretence of Conscience should therefore have liberty for all his outward actions and be allowed for his own private advantage to make publick Harangues to disturb the Peace and seduce his Neighbors by the propagation of a Schism dangerous to both Church and State is that which doth not follow even the Dissenters themselves when they had power in their Hands being Judges as appears by their carriage to the Clergy of the Church of England in the late times That a pretence of Conscience where nothing evidently sinful in it self is positively enjoyned will not justifie a Man in Schism or exempt him from Penal Laws as having a Right by the Law of Nature to be tolerated therein I shall imagine my self to have proved till I see farther The little things imposed are a means of depriving the Church of the Service of many useful Ministers that are apt to teach 〈◊〉 16. and would be glad to give the Bread of Life to those Souls that are by the Drones left in the broad way to destruction The Church of England wants not Ministers that are apt to teach but in some places Persons that will be taught and in others maintenance for the Teachers No place where there is a competent visible subsistence needs to want a Preacher Our Universities can supply another Kigndom In the mean time this needs none of their assistance if the Usurping Ministers and Encroaching Pastors would return the straying Sheep home to their own rightful Pastors and proper Folds whence designedly they have drawn them for their own advantage they would thereby do better Service to God his Church the Kingdom their own and the seduced and deluded Mens Souls than possibly they can any other way If any are Drones let them be amended or removed they may well be spared Ibid. Christ commands his Ministers to Preach and qualifies them for that Service Christ commands none to Preach but those which he calls by his Church and he who intrudes into the Sacred Office without an Ordinary Mission unless he demonstrates by Miracles an extraordinary one can shew no tolerable reason why he should not be esteemed and used as either an Euthusiast or Impostor neither can any qualifications though exceeding those of other Men which yet never have been found in them be reasonably laid in the balance with the Peace Order and Unity of the Church and the Love and Charity of the Neighborhood Our Author says in Page 17th The Ruin of Souls may be for want of the Labours of those able Ministers whom we exclude for toys I know none are excluded but such who exclude themselves and the more shame for them if they will be so humoursome and pettish as to shut out themselves because they cannot in every thing have their Wills and the more trivial the things objected are the more evident it is that somewhat else besides and more than Conscience which is pretended is the true cause of their Non Conformity But yet I can see no such great danger of the ruin of Souls more than now there is if they were as silent as they are clamorous Salvation in another sense than that in which it is usually taken being the common end of at least a great part of that noise and disturbance which is made by that Party and I heartily wish that their Hearers laying aside that blind zeal out-side Piety and unreasonable opposition to the Government both of Church and State in which they please themselves and whereby they are distinguish'd from other Men they would by the regular Piety Loyalty Peace Humility Obedience and Charity of their Lives convince the World of the excellency and sincerity of their Teachers 〈◊〉 18. 4. Mischiefs to Piety The most Learned Divines and the Wisest States-men in the World are but bunglers when they take upon them to add unto Gods Worship what he hath not appointed If our Author either could or would tell us what Worship God hath particularly appointed
Enemy unless we suppose the always peevish Fanaticks should now take the Pet because they are not humour'd in every thing and all turn Papists and going over into Ireland should doing in earnest what they in jest promised him stand by King James with their Lives and Fortunes As to our Author 's long excursion on the cruelties of the Papists it cannot be denyed even by him who would Advocate their Cause that they have used wrong unchristian and cruel Methods to preserve the Unity of their Church of which I hope they are now ashamed God forbid that the like should ever be used again or the same repeated Neither is it any more than truth that the Calvinists though they want their Opinion of merit to actuate them and that of the Damnation of all but those of their own Church to excuse them have yet so well improved the rest of their Principles and prosecuted them under a pretence of duty and the Obligations of Publick Conjurations with as great an industry as if they rival'd them and scorn'd to come short of their Example Popery under the Vizor of Zeal for the Extirpation of Heresie was the first Enemy the Reformed Church of England had to encounter and attempted to strangle it in it's Infancy but being overcome by the sincere practice of her Primitive Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance it vanish'd and left it in the possession of a most Glorious Victory which it enjoyed for a while but alass our seemingly vanquish'd Adversary by an equivocal Generation unfortunately became the Parent of a less affrightning but far more fatal Enemy Fanaticism not so professedly opposite to the Doctrine but in the event more destructive to the Polity Peace Order Decency Unity and Uniformity of our Church these two have both by open and secret Attempts successively made against her exercis'd our Churches Patience and persecuted her upon contrary accounts one because she will not and the other because she will use as is pretended a Ceremonious Worship O happy though unfortunate Church of England which for the best of Choices the Golden Meane of safety and moderation art thus persecuted on the Right Hand and on the Left by both the opposite Parties who like Herod and Pontius Pilate in their enmity to thy Lord agree in nothing but their continued Hostilities against thee I shall not recount the pretences made the means used by either of them for their so doing nor the event probably following but only note that Popery seeming to have made or at least designed the last assault Fanaticism may rationally be expected to make the next And that it may prove as much destructive as it is a foolish and unprofitable policy to run so far from the advances of one Enemy that we never stop till we are within the quarters of another Our Author might have remembred that Men of other Religions besides Popery can enter into Plots and Conspiracies strike at the Foundations of Government Resist Depose Assassinate and Murther Kings absolve Subjects from their Allegiance and dispense with the most horrid Wickednesses and consequently are as little to be trusted 3. Our danger in respect of God's Judgments which we may bring upon our Heads Though Popery should never be able to lift up its Head again in this Land yet if we continue in the same course that provoked God to cast us into the late confusions he can find other Plagues to inflict upon us I shall readily enough believe that Popery which seems to be withdrawn from us for a while is not that great Enemy this Church and State have now to conflict with and also that if the Men of this Nation will yet continue in their Sins and Follies which provoke Almighty God to wrath and subject us to his Punishments he can find other Plagues of the contrary extreme no less fatal to inflict upon us I wish we do not prevent his Judgments by finding out Plagues to afflict our selves and so become our own Executioners and Martyrs to our own lusts which God in anger and judgment suffers us to enjoy Are not Gods People now in Spiritual Captivity when they must not enjoy his Ordinances with us but upon terms they cannot conform to and he never appointed Our Author in his Fanatick Cant calls the Dissenters Gods People which must be understood either exclusively or eminently but they have no title to that Appellation in either sense But how is this reconcilable with what he hath told us before The Meetings of Dissenters are as Legal as ours and afterwards the Act of Indulgence sets all Men at liberty What then needs this whining and impertinent complaint of spiritual Captivity in times of too great liberty As for the Ordinances who ever hindred their enjoyment of them but they voluntarily refused to communicate with us made a perverse Schism and then complain of it and now they have what they wish'd for are no more satisfied than they were before are so unjust now when they have leave to use their own novel inventions and homely postures that they will not let us quietly enjoy our Ancient Catholick Decent and Legal Customs and so unreasonable that they will needs have us merely to humour them recede from our own approved and regular Constitutions and joyn in their Confusions and use their Customs though they are such as we cannot conform to and God never appointed If People did look before them and consider the Providence of God and tendency of things they would be more indifferent towards indifferent things Gods Providence is beyond our comprehension and his Precepts and not that should be the Rule of our Lives What our Author means by Peoples looking before them or the tendency of things I know not but think if Men would look behind them to the practice of the Primitive and Catholick Church for 1500 Years and not condemn all the Generations of God's Children certainly they would not separate from a Church which both in Doctrine and Discipline is so agreeable to the Primitive that they thereby do consequentially grant that there never was a Christian Church Visible in the World with which had they lived contemporary they would have held Communion or would look before them and consider whither these unreasonable and unnecessary Schisms tend and the lamentable mischiefs that will in time befall this unhappy Church and State as the effects and fruits thereof if they had either conscience or prudence they would cease making such violent and humoursom opposition against the Establish'd Order consult their own and the Churches Peace and be more wise and indifferent towards indifferent things As for Mr. Charnock's abusing of the Devil 〈…〉 in calling him Fool c. he being otherwise represented to us in Scripture perhaps it may be the result of his false Principles however I shall not much concern my self since it is impertinent to my purpose and I am no ways obliged to vindicate his reputation 2. 〈…〉
Our future danger from the continuance of Ceremonies and that in respect of the account we must give to our Judge Our Author it seems would have the World believe that we have many or at least some very dangerous Ceremonies in the Church of England whereas except kneeling and standing are such as I have already observ'd and his tautologies have often forc'd me to repeat there are no Ceremonies enjoyned to be observed by the Congregation in our Publick Worship and all the Ceremonies the Clergy are appointed by our Church to use in all her Publick Offices joyntly taken if Ceremonies are taken in that sense in which they include not Baptism and the Holy Communion exceed not three and those three are so inoffensive in themselves and innocent in their signification that none of the Dissenters could ever yet prove them unlawful and our Author who hath shewn malice enough by his railing thought fit to pass over that Topick in silence retained for so good ends and purposes and tend so much and evidently to Devotion Decency Order and Uniformity the Piety and Wisdom of our Reformers in reserving them and only them out of such a Multitude deserve not only to be commended but admired neither is it to be supposed that those Holy Men most of which either dyed or suffered Banishment in the Cause would clog and burthen that Doctrin and Reformation with evil or unprofitable Ceremonies which they were forced to espouse with the utmost peril of their Lives and Fortunes How will you at that day lift up your Faces before your Master and your Judge when he shall demand of you what is become of those his Lambs 〈…〉 which you drove into the Wilderness by needless Impositions Instead of other answer to this Question I shall ask another How will you O ye dissenting and seducing Teachers at that day lift up your Faces before your Master and your Judge when he shall demand of you what is become of those his Lambs which you have enticed and enveigled away from their own proper Pastors and Folds into the Wilderness by your needless oppositions to things lawful and indifferent by your perverse separation from a decent Establish'd Order and by your scandalous Schism from my true Church and making mischievous divisions in it Româ— 17 â—â— upon the specious pretence of Conscience when the true inward Motives were pride sensuality and interest and the effects have been prejudices censures malice railings seditions rebellions c To conclude notwithstanding all those dreadful denunciations of vengeance that our Author useth to affright our Clergy or the Members of our Church I doubt not but that it will be far more tolerable both for our Reformers who continued our present Rites and Ceremonies and the Clergy who since did and yet do use them in the Day of Judgment than for those who out of Pride and Interest oppose them upon their account make an unnecessary Separation from the Church or like our Author seditiously and schismatically libel the Government and Church to encrease the Enemies and endanger the Peace of both Some Considerations on the Author 1. HAD not our Author by an ambiguous if not fictious Subscription obtruded himself upon the World for a Clergy-man of the Church of England I should as well as others for ever as I did a long time have let his Pamphlet lye neglected upon the Booksellers Shop windows as being what the Title Page shews it a fardle of malice and railing prejudice and passion for such usually are the Pamphlets of our Adversaries and therefore fitter to be answered by silence and contempt than any other way If we take liberty to wave the Subscription and judg of the Author by his work he seems to be really though disguised a Jesuit or at least a Regular of some other Order in the Romish Church Commissioned as an Emissary and sent hither to disturb our Peace and this we may the more readily believe if we remember That the Church of Rome esteeming the Church of England because so like the Primitive both in Doctrine and Discipline and the only Church able to convince her of her corruptions and novelties her greatest and most invincible Enemy which since her Champions could neither by their Pens confute 〈…〉 nor by their Swords destroy they made it their business to weaken by divisions pursuant to which proposed Method long since in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign they set patterns to the Dissenters to make long extemporary Prayers to decry set Forms rail against our Liturgy Ceremonies the pretended corruptions of our Church and Popery it self for which good service one Faithful Comyn 〈…〉 in particular was rewarded by the then Pope with 2000 Ducats On the same errand were many other Jesuits sent over into these Kingdoms in the Reign of King Charles I. which how well they succeeded is but too well known And our Author following the same labour it is but rational to suppose him set on work by the same Master carrying on the same design and expecting the same issue and hoping for the same or the like reward 2. Or since the Pamphlet contains weak or rather no Arguments but instead thereof strong calumnies its Style is Fanatick-cant intermixt with down-right scurrilous railing and is with no less impertinence than conceited confidence proposed to the Convocation we may suppose our Author to be some small retailer of the Geneva-Discipline and Government who having read a Systeme or two where that Model is laid down as Orthodox Divinity is therewith so captivated and possessed with it that all others must be censured condemn'd and abolish'd to make room for it and being fully persuaded of the truth of those notions he judges every thing lawful or unlawful as it suits or disagrees with them neither will the subscription though in unusual terms By P. M. a Minister of the Church of England make it much less probable for Presbyterians besides an envy to the Episcopal Order because it is superior to their own and Antimonarchical Principles may have learned of their elder Brethren the Jesuits the useful art of Equivocation by virtue whereof our Author if he believes his own words in pag. 36. Our Brethren meaning the Dissenting holders forth have according to the Act of Indulgence subscribed our Doctrine and thereby are incorporated into the Church of England perhaps may think it in some sense to be reconcilable to truth and to this conjecture the use of that affected word Minister which as in use formerly in the Jewish Synagogue 〈◊〉 20. signified him who kept the Book and prompted the Reader according to its derivation a Servant and in the Christian Church a Deacon or Alms Keeper adds a great probability 3. But if our Author be really such as he designs to be thought a Clergy-man in the Church of England though a Minister or Deacon in the lowest Station he hath degenerated yet lower and become guilty of the
concurr'd to the granting of them a Parliamentary Indulgence neither did her kindness end there but she entertained thoughts of making farther attempts to re-unite them to her Communion till their own carriage and ill returns made her pursue those Methods more coldly which by the outward Symptoms appear already to be without any hopes of the design'd success Therefore Pa◠〈…〉 as to the many Dissenters living in the confines of our Church the bringing them back to her Communion and thereby the Restauration of a mutual tranquillity peace and charity among all her Members and the recalling of that Christian Love which seems now to have forsaken us as well as the rest of Europe would be the greatest and most valuable blessing both to our Church and State can be attained on this side Heaven and he doth not deserve to be reckon'd in the number of good Christians who would not part with all his temporal enjoyments or even his Life it self were it at his own disposal to purchase it God forbid that any Clergy-men of the Church of England should hold any Rites or Ceremonies the two Sacraments often so called only excepted Church-Constitutions Canons Customs Benefices or Preferments whatsoever so dear unto them but that they would most gladly Sacrifice any or all of them to the Peace and Unity of the Church were it thereby attainable this Peace and Union are that which every one wishes and desires though few find solid ground whereon to fix their hopes while we mistake the means and methods to obtain them The Dissenters being unwilling to own the real Motives of their Separation from our Church have for a pretence cavell'd and excepted against some few Passages in our Liturgy some of our legal Constitutions and Establishments our Subscriptions Ceremonies Church Customs c. Wherefore several have thought that the alteration and removal of them would effect a Re-union but that this is at the best but a great mistake I shall think my self to have sufficiently proved when I have produced such Reasons as shall be effectual for the proving the following Position viz. Any alterations how many or great soever that can be made in our present Liturgy the utter abolishing all the Ceremonies prescribed or used in our Publick Worship and any alterationâ— that can be made in our Book of Constitutions and Canons or all these together should they be accomplished would never heal the Schisms that are amongst us and reâ—unite the Dissenters to the Church of England For 1. If the Liturgy Ceremonies and Constitutions in use in the Church of England were the causes of these Schisms and Separations then where these are not in use there would be no Schisms but we see the contrary In the United Provinces what a great and formal Schism did the Calvinists make upon the account of Five disputable Articles neither way accounted Heresie and what a severe Persecution did they raise against the Remonstrants which they could neither confute nor convince of error because they would not say as they would have them In Scotland the Church there by Law Established in the Reign of King Charles II. used no Liturgy no Cross after Baptism nor any other Ceremony that ever I could learn and yet the Dissenters there behaved themselves far worse to the Conformists than ever the Jews did to the Samaritans nay so barbarously as undeniably to evince that the true Presbyterian Spirit is no less full of rancour malice spleen hatred and when let loose from fear of Laws of Robberies Persecution and Bloodshed than the Papal If any fay this is nothing to us the English Presbyterians are not like the Scotch I answer God forbid they should but yet that any alterations in our Liturgy c. Abolishing of all our Ceremonies c. would never make an Union in our Church is apparent from hence that some few Years after 1640. and thence till 1661. When the Supreme Authority lodged as was pretended in the House of Commons with the assistance of the Rabble had disowned the King's Authority in Church and State and thrown all our Laws thereunto relating out of doors and our Liturgy Rites Ceremonies Church-customs Constitutions and Canons were all abolished and discharged so that if the cause of the Con-conformity Schism and Separation lay in any or all of them it must necessarily have been removed The Dissenters were so far from an Union among themselves 〈◊〉 â— by â— Mr. 〈…〉 that on the contrary they subdivided themselves into many minute Sects and Opinions and gave birth or revival to about forty more than our Church was formerly troubled with some whereof neither Amsterdam nor the World it self had ever seen before And this is so convincing an Argument being taught us by experience the School Mistress of Fools that I need add no more for the proof of my Assertion but I subjoin ex abundanti If our Liturgy should be altered our Ceremonies abolished and our Constitutions and Canons till they became insignificant so that one or two of the gravest wisest and most moderate of the Dissenting Preachers for the love of Peace and Union having Episcopal Ordination should come over to our Church and conform unto it yet the main Body of the Presbyterians who being unacquainted with Antiquity have credulously embraced the opinion of Lay Elders believe the Ordination of Presbyters by Presbyters to be valid and are too wise in their own Eyes to be informed The Independents who before separated from the Presbyterians and were numerous and powerful enough in Anno 1647. to supplant and displace them The Anabaptists and Quakers whose opinion of Liberty of Prophesying makes them uncapable of being united in Church Polity And all the other subdivisions and lesser Sects and Relicks of Schisms having the same Reasons must be supposed to continue in the same Separation as formerly and consequently by these means would never be reunited to our Communion and Church Some of their Teachers would be conscious to themselves of their own Ignorance and that their whining Tones useful impletives of Hums Huh's spittings Coughings c. Canting Phrases affected and unintelligible expressions so melting and ravishing to the Apron-proselytes would not meet with that applause and Admiration in a more judicious Auditory and a Congregation used to the more pertinent solid and rational Discourses made by the learned Clergy in the Conformable Churches and therefore will think it prudence rather to stay where they imagine themselves highly in esteem than to go where their defects will render them only tolerable Others since our Church is abundantly supply'd with learned and deserving Divines which will and may with good reason expect the best Benefices and their qualifications being none of the greatest they consulting their own interest perhaps will judge the Mens present gratuities together with their Wives superadded and secret kindnesses more eligible than the probability of being provided after a considerable long expectation with a small One Others as if
oppositions of the Civil Magistrate's Authority and exclaiming against his Government their industrious spreading of false and malicious reports to undermine it by possessing others with prejudice against it are all sufficient nay undeniable evidences that their actions are not directed to the preservation of a pure and undefiled Conscience as is pretended for that is void of offence towards God and Man but to the encreasing and upholding a Faction in the State to confront the Government I might add hereunto the practice of our Dissenting Brethren in New-England in their combinations conspiracies against and oppositions to their Governors and the Royal Authority their Penal Laws made against those of the Communion of the Church of England their Sanguinary ones against the Quakers c. their Persecutions of the former and Executions of the latter and their injurious and unchristian dealings with all Men not of their new Church fellowship are such plain instances that their Principles and Practices are such as for which no Conscience or Conviction of judgment can with any shew of reason be pretended or with any appearance of discretion be allowed 4. To alledge the Immorality of the Dissenters Lives in general as an Argument that their Schism was not caused by the conviction of their Consciences since he who lives in the wilful Commission of any one known sin hath forfeited his right to the Plea of Conscience in any other case though a probable Inference yet I am sensible would be to insist upon an harsh and unpleasing Topick to others as well as my self having therefore in the last Paragraph intimated it in relation to their carriage to their Governors in Church and State Here in Scotland and New-England from the beginning of the Rebellion against King Charles I. and often since observing only here that the Scripture Histories Reason and Experience have taught us sufficiently that no actions can be more immoral than the conspiring beginning and carrying on of Oppositions Insurrections and Rebellions and those things which precede accompany and follow them which when made under pretence of Religion are thereby yet aggravated by the dishonour done to the Profession of it the scandal given to others and the addition of their own Hypocrisie I shall pursue it no farther but only give you a Character which one who knew them very well by his own woful experience hath left us gathered by his personal observation and confirm'd with a solemn Protestation It is that of King James I. to his Son Prince Charles Take heed therefore My Son of such Puritanes very Pests in the Church and Common-wealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths or Promises bind breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations without any warrant of the word the square of their Conscience I protest before the great God and since I am here as upon my Testament it is no place for me to lie in that ye shall never find with any High-land or Border-Thieves greater ingratitude and more lyes and vile perjuries than with these Fanatick Spirits c. Basil Dor. l. 2. p. 160. This is a Testimony too great to be disputed much more to be denyed it commands belief and needs no confirmation and is large and wants no addition Lastly This Schism themselves being judges is unnecessary for upon supposition that either the Presbyterian or Independent in the difference betwixt the Church of England and them is in the right tho the Institution of our Saviour the Writings and Practices of the Apostles the Universal Government of the whole Catholick Church being against them both it is scarcely to be supposed yet since neither of them can deny a true Christian Church wherein are all things necessary to Salvation to have subsisted under the Episcopal Government unless he will assert that there never was such a true Christian Church in the World till Mr. John Calvin erected one at Geneva Anno Dom. 1541. which I think neither of them will affirm what can be imagined should hinder but that they may both live in Communion with the Church of England which they cannot deny to be such an one It is evident enough by the Writings of the Presbyterians Printed between the Years 1640. and 1660. part of which time the Government was in their own or a Friends hand that they insisted upon this as a sufficient argument against the Independents Separation That they allowed their Churches to be true Christian Churches and therefore they condemned them and all others separating from them as guilty of Schism and declared against a Toleration of them as appearas by their Covenant Letter to the Assembly Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ and others too many to be named So that it is evident that they themselves since they cannot deny our Churches to be true Christian Churches are now such Persons as when they had power in their hands they judged to be inexcusable and not to be tolerated in their Schism because unnecessary and therefore unlawful being made from that which the Separatists themselves confess to be a true Christian Church and consequently that their then judgment condemns their present practice This might be a sufficient argument for us if we had no other to conclude that the prepossessions and prejudices education custom relation interest temporal advantage fear of being accompted fickle unstable c. if conforming and not any conviction of Judgment obligation of Conscience sense of Duty impartially considered or objection against our Liturgy Rites or Ceremonies rightly understood and duely pondered are the true though concealed causes of their renewing and continuing this which when time was at least by parity of reason they themselves judged unnecessary and unlawful Schism Whether it be no reflection on these pretended Teachers to act so contrary to their own Principles and former practises let their Consciences and the World judge In what guilt they involve themselves and their deluded Proselytes for their own temporal gain interest reputation and advantage deserves their most serious Examination In the mean time to all those who desire to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace it must needs be a very sad spectacle to see prejudic'd ignorant unstable and inadvertent Men not considering the relation they stand in to their own proper Pastors the hazards they run of their own Souls by the guilt of Schism they incur and the scandal they lay before others nor the invalid Ordination of these new intruding Teachers 〈◊〉 10.1 their want of Mission or their designing Schism nor the Obligations of their own Consciences to promote and preserve the Peace Order Unity and Communion of the Church or the many and great mischiefs attending an unnecessary and therefore a criminal separation should contemn those spiritual advantages of Church Ordinances celebrated in the most Decent Pious and Apostolick manner and needlesly make a childish and perverse Schism from the
most Orthodox and best constituted Church now Visible to the World And though the Dissenters in general thought it advantagious to their cause to pretend objections against the Liturgy Rites Ceremonies and Constitutions of the Church of England as being founded in Conscience and the most plausible because the Obligations of it depend upon the WIll of God the Supreme Law-giver and the insincerity of the pretence not easily demonstrable Yet since according to their own Principles sufficiently known such a Schism as theirs from our Church now is is sinful and a Toleration not to be allowed it must rationally be imputed to other Motives and Inducements for had they been Men of a modest temper peaceable disposition pious and regular lives they would have been very careful not to have given offence they would have submitted themselves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake They would never have separated upon the accompt of kneeling at Prayers and standing up at the repetition of the Creed and Gospel and yet these are all that are enjoyn'd the Congregation in our daily and weekly Publick Worship or of any indifferent Rite or Ceremony retained in our Church for the sake of Order Decency Unity Communion with the Primitive and Catholick Church and avoiding of scandal or of any other Rite Ceremony Vestment Gesture or Custom whatsoever not evidently sinful in it self and so rigorously enjoyn'd them that they must necessarily either make that particular Rite Ceremony Vestment Gesture or Custom their own by an actual participation in it and approbation of it or be excluded from Communion This last being the only case in which it can be lawful to separate from a national establish'd Church had it been observed all our Dissenters Quakers and other Enthusiasts only excepted notwithstanding any different Opinions about smaller matters would have continued in the Communion of our Church as we may observe the several Factions Parties and orders in the Church of Rome though disagreeing sufficiently amongst themselves in many things yet make no Separation from it By what hath been said I suppose it evident that this unhappy Schism was not caused by our use of the present Liturgy any Rites Ceremonies and Constitutions of our Church and consequently that any alteration of them whatsoever or even a total abolition of them would never put an end to it neither is there any other way to do it but one and that is by the alteration of Persons and not of things if the Dissenting Teachers for the Love of Souls and the Restoration of Peace to this miserably divided Church would be persuaded though but for a while to act counter to their seeming rather than real worldly Interests and exercise self-denial to unsay what they have unjustly to serve Sinister Interests said in imputing any thing of Popery or Superstition to any Ceremony or Custom in our Church teach their Disciples and prevail with them effectually to lay aside all that prepossession prejudice pride self-conceit malice superstition erroneous Opinions love of opposition untractableness and censoriousness which they have all this while industriously and designedly instill'd into them and leaven'd them with and to put on that humble innocent modest and docible temper which our Saviour speaks of in Children and recommends to us in imitation of them in the Gospel guide them to their own proper Folds whence they have injuriously for their Fleece sake and other their own ends seduced them and then either qualifie themselves to become their lawful Pastors or by their good Instructions and Examples learn them as in duty bounden to be content to be taught by them that are it may be done our Liturgy Rites c. remaining entire but without such a conscientious concurrence assistance and complyance though all of thâ—m should be altered as much as can be proposed or what is really designed by some abolished it will never be attained And though the Dissenting Teachers to silence their own and satisfie their Disciples Consciences when accusing them as guilty of Schism cast the blame on the Church of Englands Liturgy and Constitutions as the cause of it and it is probable that had they seen no preparation of attempts to remove those objections nor nothing proposed to the Convocation in order thereunto they would have continued to insist upon them with loud and repeated exclamations yet by their since present silence in that point by their inveighing against Episcopacy and other Laudable Church-Rites and Customs approved by all the Reformed Churches in their late Pamphlets and by their repetitions of their Usurp'd Schismatical and Invalid Ordinations in so plentiful a manner in the interim it appears plainly that notwithstanding their complaints they are really unwilling for fear of being put to the trouble of inventing new ones and so by the shifting of the Scenes too often the juggle should be in danger of being discovered that their old pretended grievances should be removed and that they never did sincerely intend to put an end to the Schism and hence it is that as I am credibly informed several of their Teachers have entred into new Combinations and Conspiracies never to re-unite themselves with the Church of England notwithstanding any endeavors or alterations any omissions or condescensions that should be made or granted to that purpose in their favour and to the same end if the Bodies of their Pamphlets correspond to their Titles several of them have lately written So that upon the whole matter he that shall consider the Original growth and propagation of the Schism will easily perceive that as hitherto some other Motives more than those of their Consciences and our Ceremonies caused the Dissenters to begin continue and increase it so now notwithstanding they continue to pretend the same objections their design is not seriously to put an end to it and strengthen the Church by a Re-union of themselves with it but to gain an opportunity of vain glorying and insulting over her interpreting all alterations though granted but as Free Benign and Paternal Condescensions as demonstrations and concessions that the Established Church hath been all this while in the wrong and they themselves in the right to expose contemn and deride their Folly Levity and Cowardise in deserving their own Principles and to undermine and reduce the Church to that weak and languishing condition in which it cannot long be preserved from utter ruine by taking away her Foundations Constitutions and Establishments which have till now supported Her as Impregnable against both the Papists and Themselves and thereby in time be able once more to grasp the Revenues of both Crown and Mitre and if their Potent Rivals the Independents interpose not too early and powerfully having destroyed both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government to make themselves Peers in Church and State Quod tamen absit FINIS