great Thunder-claps which shall end like crackling of Thorns under the Pot. The ground of all this is my Humble Address to both Houses of Parliament that they would be pleased to take some care of the Cause of Christ and to put a curb upon his Enemies such I call those who would rob him of his Divine Nature and Attributes and attempt to overthrow the first Article of our Faith of One God in Three Persons There are some Men in the World that if one doth but look them in the Face they are apt to cry out Murther whether or not at that time a guilty Conscience flies into their Faces God knows That same may happen sometimes to disturb them so far as to make them grosly mistake in their Judgment as about Things so about Persons as they are very much in me who in my Heart and Opinion am as much against Persecution upon account of Religion and for a due regard to tender Consciences as any Man in the World When the Question is about indifferent and not very material things then for Peace and Charity 's sake Gentleness and Meekness ought to prevail but it must be otherwise when Fundamentals are not only shaken but overturned and when Religion it self is pulled up by the very root as 't is when humane Reason is made a standing Rule whereby to judge of Revelation when the Doctrines of the most Holy Trinity of the Satisfaction which the Lord Jesus hath by the Sacrifice of himself made for our Sins with other things thereupon depending and what Scriptures with the received Creeds of the Primitive Church do affirm about it and what our Church believes I say it ought to be otherwise when all these lie at stake and are blown up at oncâ— then or never 't is high time to speak out especially when we see how boldly and openly these things are carried on We use to say There is a difference between mad and stark staring mad People distemper'd in their Minds are dealt withal according unto the nature and degree of their Distemper some confin'd to their Chambers others to their Beds others bound and chained up The like we observe in the Distempers of the Politick Body he who rashly speaks ill of the Government deserves some Punishment but not so great as he who violently attempts to overthrow it or to destroy the Persons in whose hands God hath lodged the Power so it must be in spiritual Diseases which affect the Body of the Church and these several ways I mean when I speak of a true and proper Remedy whereof the applying depends upon the Skill of the Physician 't is not any effect of Cruelty to make Incisions and cut off dead Flesh out of a Wound to prevent a Gangrene nor to restrain People that have the Plague from coming among those that are free from it for fear of infecting them So 't is no Persecution to take care that Hereticks such all Orthodox Christian Churches take Socinians to be do not come in among those that are sound in the Faith This great Danger may in a due respect and humble way be represented to the superiour Power whose Office is to prevent and remedy Inconveniences This I humbly conceive to be a Branch of the Right of the Subject and it may not be called To prescribe them what to do they cannot be every where nor know every thing therefore stand in need of being informed this is the usual course of Justice for no Redress when no Complaint is made and I was so far from presuming to prescribe therein that in my Epistle pag. 18. I declare against it All that are no Socinians are agreed how their Tenets about the most holy Trinity are heretical and consequently contrary to the Doctrine of the Church as by Law established Now the Laws of the Land do forbid any thing to be published that is contrary to it it is known to all how Socinians do in Print and otherwise daily publish their blasphemous and heretical Opinions whereby they break the Law the Consequence is good to say they deserve to be punished as do all Law-Breakers and I hope they cannot pretend to come in within the Act of Indulgence tho they deny their Opinions to be heretical yet that 's not enough for them to be accounted innocent for 't is very rare to see a guilty Man when he is lyable to and sure of Punishment to confess his own Guilt yet his bare denyal doth not free him from it for if to deny was enough to clear no Man could be found guilty Both Authors of the Letters are very angry and much cry out against what I said about a Field of Honour which is in relation to the Cause to be defended against its Enemies and not to any capital Punishment which had been an imprudent thing of me and contrato my inclination to have suggested against Hereticks but these Gentlemen who often call me hot and fiery hastily skipp'd from the Second Page of my Epistle to the Seventeenth of the same to make the Field of Honour to be Smithfield These two things are written too far asunder to be joyned together as indeed there was in my thoughts nothing like Smithfield when I was insinuating that as God's Work is glorious so the occasion offer'd to promote it is as a Field of Honour as expressed in the place and what there I mentioned of one who for Socinianism suffered in Smithfield was not of my own but in consequence of a Citation out of Sir Thomas Ridley ' s View of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws where he saith Against such is provided Sentence of Death and there I gave two Instances how what he said had been executed Let any impartial Man peruse the places and they shall find it to be as I say and then may take notice how rash hasty and unjust are these Men who pretend to so much Calmness and Meekness of Spirit in making Reflections upon others who through God's Grace have a more Christian charitable frame of Spirit than themselves We indeed hate abominable Blasphemies and Heresies but neither Blasphemers nor Hereticks for some of them God if he pleases may shew Mercy and give Repentance unto their Conversion not their Ruin is wish'd for and also Endeavours are used to preserve others from being infected The true and short account of the business is this Things being in the state and condition as I represent in my Epistle and Preface I looked upon it as a Duty incumbent upon me as a Christian with what little strength God hath given me to lay it out in the Defence of the most just and best Cause in the World namely the due Honour of the most holy and adorable Trinity and the Divinity of our blessed Lord and Saviour and of the Holy Ghost which so many Legions of Martyrs have freely shed their Blood and gloriously laid down their Lives for I went not about to support it with enticing Words
of Man's Wisdom or with studied affected pompous Expressions which only bad Causes stand in need of but as our Faith doth not stand in the Wisdom of men but in the Power of God so I endeavoured with good Arguments drawn out of his Word which hitherto remain unanswered to confute Heresie and Sophistry One must not so much mind Words and Stile when the Question is about Things Those Men who mind more how they say than what they say desire their own Glory more than the Good of others In a Declamation one hath more Freedom of Stile than in difficult and deep Points of Divinity Philosophy and Mathematicks certain Matters are not adapted to a lofty Stile they that are so fond of this more than of the other are like those who prefer the Shell before the Oyster or the Stone before the Kernel Now to come to that which concerns me I say it being no evil thing to promote a good Cause by all lawful means for Right and Favour to countenance it are not incompatible not to be wanting in any thing depending upon me the Parliament then sitting and I knowing how there are several honorable and worthy Members who lay to Heart the Glory of God wherein the good of the Nation doth consist with all due Respect in an Epistle Dedicatory I humbly commended and offered it to the serious Consideration of both Houses in hope that this might happen to be a means amidst their application to the great National Concerns of another nature to draw their Eyes towards this Cause thereby to bring a Blessing of God upon their Proceedings for the greater the Emergencies and Occasions are the more need of God's Favour which may be procured no better than with doing such things as are acceptable in his sight as is the care of his Honour and Service After I had done the most and in my Book about several Points proved the Falshood of Socinianism I thought I might shew the Necessity of a Remedy and endeavour to set to work as many Hands as I could and as no Man may deny it to be the Concern of a Parliament for every new one doth appoint a Committee of Religion to look into things belonging to 't always necessary but specially when the most fundamental part of the Doctrine of the Church by Law established is daily publickly and in print stricken at so I thought I might humbly address to both Houses as the undisputably competent Judge of such things wherein I think I have done nothing contrary to the Laws of God and of the Land nor to the Rules of Charity and so deserve not the hard Names nor ill Language given me by those who have no better Argument to defend a bad Cause for all their pretended good nature and to throw Dust into Peoples Eyes only to shuffle off the matters in question The truth is that Society of Men are against all manner of restraint in matters of Religion they would have every one believe and profess what seems good in his eye and so of the Church which is the House of God to make a meer Babel and Confusion without Order and Rule which Frame will at last rend in in pieces and ruin it In the Church there must be some Authority of the Rulers of it over the Members Christ hath formed and given it a Being and left Rules for the preservation and well-being thereof the Admiministration of which he hath committed to her Governours and to what purpose should those Laws be if there was no Executive Power there is an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction with a Coercive and Expulsive Power there are Pales and Walls to hinder Wild Boars and ranging Bears from coming in and Doors to turn out those who offend infect dishonour endanger and would undermine it And Convocations which I see they care not for are necessary from time to time to promote her good and to remedy or prevent Inconveniences chiefly those which relate to Doctrine and tho' we attribute an Infallibility to none of them as there is none upon Earth yet 't is their Province for their own Members to declare about Heresie Blasphemy and other things contrary to sound Doctrine and Piety To me there appears none more competent Judges in such things than those who have Christ's Commission to feed and to rule over his Flock and in the right administration of this Office the Civil Powers called the Nursing Fathers of the Church are bound to protect and assist them against the Enemies of the holy Trinity and of the Person of Jesus Christ such are Socinians Tho' according to Times and Places Men have different Notions of divine Truths yet a real divine Truth is such at all times and in all places 't is not the Opinion which Men have of it that makes it to be Truth or not Truth nor can the several contrary Interpretations change it so if the 39 Articles specially those that relate to Faith were true at first they must be so at last and no following Convocation can make them not to be what they are or to be what they are not 't is not the stamp of any human Authority that may make a divine Institution to be divine or not and tho a new Convocation should repeal what in Fundamentals a former one setled yet some reasons for it ought to be produced About doubtful things Advice may be asked as it was in the Dispute about Circumcision when Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem for Counsel about it nothing must be omitted that may lawfully contribute towards clearing of the matter but when after a serious Examination by the Rule of God's Word according to the true signification of the words in the Original the scope of the place and the Analogy of Faith Articles of Faith once are declared 't is fit to stand to them and the Church by which they are received is enabled to judg of what is or is not contrary thereunto and to keep from coming in those who would against her mind and turn out her own Members which hold Doctrines contrary to the Truth she professeth So the Church of England being satisfied that the Socinian Tenets are quite contrary to the 1st and 2d Articles of Faith she believes hath right to turn out Socinians that are within her Pales and hinder those who would come in from without And if she wants a sufficient Power she may very well sue for help from the Civil which is the legal way for Relief and when this takes an effectual Course about it 't is Wrong and Injury to the Right and Liberty of the Subject no more than 't is Injustice to hinder one Fellow-Subject from hurting another This is no Popish Principle nor contrary to those of Reformation But where a National Church is setled to allow every Man a liberty to frame unto himself what Notions he pleases of Religion then to promote vent and publish it to the Disturbance of what is
Heretical and to the disturbance of a Settlement made by a Lawful Authority and to promote it in Discourse Conversation Printing Publishing and such other ways as ye Gentlemen Socinians are forward to do what security for the Articles of our Religion as by Law established We must be governed by an uncertain Tide this Year of one Mind and Religion the next as occasion is offered of another and those who now are the undermost in Power and so much plead for a freedom of Opinions and Religion in the greatest latitude if once they had the upper-hand they would alter their Tune and turn Blasphemy and Idolatry upon the Orthodox for setting up a meer Man for a God and worshipping him As long as they want Power they are for Moderation but ye are ruled by a Spirit which might soon happen to make you turn Moderation into Persecution as all Enemies to Christ are apt to do Socinians were not twice banished out of Poland where they were grown strong and turned out of other places for nothing 't is but prudence to tie your Hands and bind you to your good Behaviour if ye are so busie when not supported by the Magistrates what would ye be if once you had gotten the Power in your own hand unruly Horses must have Curbs put upon them Will not a general Toleration and for every Man in the Land about Religion introduce Confusion That must not be if it were only for Order sake for as the greatest part of the World is the worst of it so Idolatry Blasphemy and all manner of Heresy must be look'd for at one time or other and are ye not of opinion that Confusion in Church might pass into the State for ye would not be bound with any thing No doubt ye would be very angry if the Parliament would either revive old or enact new Penal Laws against you How far you would give the Magistrate leave to meddle in Matters of Religion we cannot well tell tho' by thet Title of the Book you commend to our reading about the Power of the Magistrate and the Rights of Mankind in Matters of Religion which I being in the Country cannot see for the present yet we must suppose it to favour your Principles or else you would not commend it as you do And as you would not have the Magistrates to meddle far in Matters of Religion nor to punish Hereticks which was one of Donatus his Errors so by what you say you have no very good opinion of a Convocation which yet we look upon to be the most competent Judge we have about those Matters We agree with you how the Convocation which made the Articles Service-Book and Homilies was an Assembly of Doctors and Clergy-men that were Fallible but for all that Fallibility many of them were Men of great Piety and Parts and as no Infallibility is to be found in this World next to that I think the Nation was happy at that time to have Persons so well qualified for the Work And ye are much mistaken to say they enacted their Opinions into Articles for the Articles of our Faith are not Mans Opinions they extracted them out of the Word of God which supplied them with the Materials only they disposed it into the best Order they thought fit as God enabled them After this rate you attempt to give our Religion a fatal blow you would have us to pin our Faith on Mens Sleeves and Opinions so they might lawfully be repealed this Year the next or at any time Thus if Popery under King James had prevailed we had quite been at a loss our Articles had been declared Heretical tho' if we measure them according to the Rule of God's Word they are as sound as any can be and our Religion in some sense had been lost and we put to seek for and set up another But I say that tho' the whole Popish false Christian and Mahometan World should condemn them yet still they would be True and Orthodox not because they were formed by a Convocation but because they are collected out of God's Word the Rule of Truth Suppose Socinians here had the upper hand which I hope I shall never live to see then they would get a Convocation of their own to wrest and turn our Articles into their Channel and for all their plea for a private Interpretation they would set up a publick one of their own and like another Council of Arimini which revoked what that of Nice had done before against Arians have an Assembly to Condemn or at least to give our said Articles their Socinian Interpretation As to what you say that a future Clergy may repeal and declare against the present Articles I answer God forbid that ever he should be so angry against the Nation as to suffer such a thing to be brought upon the Stage but in case it was I say it might happen that such a Convocation could repeal that is have a Power but it might not that is should have no right to do 't I can but may not kill a Man I shall not trouble my self with discovering the Rottenness of your Principles about these things for that you do your selves when you say that People may alter their minds and so their Religion so one to day a Socinian may if he thinks fit to morrow be a true Christian and you give this for a reason A Man cannot foresee what will come to pass and so a Doctrine which at one time may be convenient may be otherwise when Circumstances of Time shall alter So now when Socinians are undisturbed it is convenient for them to be what they are but if the Circumstances of Time should alter then for Conveniency sake they might alter too to avoid Fire and Faggot if they were in danger of it This Policy never enter'd into the Heart of Martyrs but after this Principle yours is a time-serving and unstable Religion one may alter from the worse to the better 't is well and good and happy ye If God peradventure will give you repentance to the acknowledging of the Truth of Christ and not holding it in Unrighteousness This Principle of yours for Fickleness and Changeableness in Religion you would demonstrate and may be justifie out of what you say All the Subscription of the Clergy to the Predestinarian-Doctrine contained in the Articles and Homilies hath not preserved them from contrary Sentiments such as when Van Harman first broached them were universally judged to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England I like in a thing that cannot be denyed to see you own the Truth how Arminianism is contrary to the Articles Homilies and Doctrine of the Church of England Thus Habemus fatentem reum why then ye who pretend to be Members of the Church do you profess Doctrines contrary to hers and all along declare for them I see you will not stop there but infer that as the Clergy of the Church
of all Offences committed in the County of Middlesex in consideration of our Duty and in obedience to the Directions given us by Mr. Justice Rookeby in his Charge do humbly present that We find by daily experience that several great and fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion as they are professed by the Church of England and contained in the 39 Articles and established as the Avowed Doctrine of the Church of England by several Acts of Parliament are not only disputed and questioned but absolutely denyed and particularly the Doctrine of the Trinity of the Divinity of Christ and of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost and Books are daily writ printed and published either directly contrary to the said Doctrine or by consequence in opposition to them denying all the Mysteries of the Christian Religion and resolving all into such Notions as are to be made good by Humane Reason and thereby making void the whole revealed Religion and destroying the Necessity of Faith in order to Eternal Salvation by means whereof Arianism Socinianism Atheism and Deism do greatly abound and there are Proselytes to the same daily made to the great Scandal of the Church of England and the Orthodox Members thereof For preventing of which for the future We do present that all care possible ought to be taken for the speedy discovering of all such Books as are so writ printed or published contrary to the known Doctrine of the Church of England and the Authors Printers and Publishers of the same and for punishing the Authors Printers and Publishers thereof according to the utmost severity of the Laws and for the suppressing all such Books of that kind as are already printed and for preventing the printing any more for the time to come And we do farther present that a Book Entitled Christianity not Mysterious or a Treatise shewing That there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to Reason or above it and that no Christian Doctrine can be properly called a Mystery supposed to be written by one Mr. Toland And also another Book Entitled The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures And also one other Book Entitled The Lady's Religion in a Letter the Honourable the Lady Howard are Books fit to be suppressed and the Authors Printers and Publishers of the same ought to have such Punishment inflicted on them as by the Laws of the Land they may Item We present a Pamphlet lately published Entitled A Letter to a Convocation-Man concerning the Rights Powers and Privileges of that Body to be Scandalous and against the Constitution of the Government and ought to be suppressed and the Author punished Now ye may see by the Agreement of this Presentment with the things contained in my Epistle and Preface to which 't is posteriour how in what I said or did I was not in the wrong nor out of the way I faithfully give it as it is without changing Words or altering the Sense as some of you have done of some of your Citations out of my Papers ye are always sure to give the worst Construction of Words and Things like Spiders ye turn all things into Poison about which besides what I already observed I shall on the way take notice of one thing more when I say no Soldier in an Enemy's Country ought to struggle out of the way c. for he that doth so ventures to be knocked on the head you put in ought instead of ventures is this fairly done Certainly 't is a great difference between saying a Man runs the hazard of being knocked and he ought to be knocked on the head so if I should but write or speak Reason you with adding one Letter would soon make it Treason and if you write or speak Treason with taking off one Letter you can soon make it Reason this is said to shew your Partiality As to what follows in the same Page and the next after about Dr. Sh against his Antagonist as against me I shall not trouble my head about it only God forgive and give you Grace to mend I see all that have any thing to do with this Man or lye in his way and are not of his mind must prepare for the like usage but I say I do not concern my self about Persons so much as about the Cause and therefore whosover would in the Godhead set up three Spirits and Substances is in my opinion fallen into a fundamental Heresie and whosoever is against such in that same thing I join with because I always love to be for the Truth In what follows I desire the Reader to take notice of the Man's want of Sincerity As well as I he knows we are not and cannot be agreed upon the very Terms he sets down for they contain the quintessence of their Error about the Holy Trinity for Sirs ye would have Jesus Christ to be not a Person but only an Attribute as the Wisdom of God so the Holy Ghost to be only the Vertue and Power of God and not an Hypostasis a Person of the Godhead for tho' one of you saith that for Peace-sake ye submit to the Phrase of the Church that is to the name Person yet ye interpret it not as the Church doth Therefore tho' you say the Vnitarians the Catholick Church the Translator and I are at perfect Agreement and tho' we agree in the Oneness of the Godhead or of one Divine Nature and to make use of your words that there is One Infinite Spiritual Substance yet we are far from agreeing with you in what follows with three Properties unbegotten begotten and proceeding c. except ye explain your meaning otherwise than ye use to do Arius under a word which if well taken might be harmless enough sheltered his Error so 't is usual with you ye are meerly for Words but we do besides Words look for Things and would have such Words as are proper as much as may be to signifie the Things Now your threefold distinction of Original Mind reflex Wisdom and Divine Love may be sufficient to represent what you mean thereby but not what we believe We make a distinction between the Property and the Person of the Godhead but you do confound them and would have it to be but one and the same Now if with us you will say that in one and most simple Nature of God are three distinct Persons to whom the infinite and singular Nature of one only God is common and that these three distinct Persons the Attributes of that one God do belong to then you say something to the purpose or else like the Gibeonites you come in to us only to deceive us We assert three Persons and not barely three Properties in the Godhead we say the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person and so three Persons but we don't say the Father is an Attribute the Son an Attribute and the Holy Ghost an Attribute thereby of three Persons to make