offend in Doctrine than in Discipline Sure much Learning or Haughty Pride and Ambition Self-ends and Interest hath made these Men mad And so fulfilled the Prophecy of Hosea 9.7 The Prophet is a fool and the Spiritual man mad Sure God hath turned these wise Ecclesiastical Polititians backwards and made their knowledge foollish Isai 44.25 However I will say thus much to them That Liberty of Conscience is undeniably the right of every true Believer viz. to judge of such things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and service of God whether they are above the reach and light of Nature and therefore liable to be variously understood by human Reason or enjoyned or forbidden by Divine Precept and to follow that full perswasion whereby every one is assured that his Belief and Practice as far as he is able to apprehend is according to the Will of God and his Holy Spirit within him which undoubtedly we ought to follow much rather than any publick Conscience or Law of Man Magistrate or not Magistrate as both the Word of God bids us and the very dictate of Reason tells us Acts 4.19 Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye And we have no other outward Divine Rule to judge by than the Scriptures nor no other within us but the illumination of the Spirit so interpreting that Scripture as warrantably only unto our selves which commands us to search the Scriptures daily whether those things are so Acts 17.11 and gives us Reason also let every man prove his own not his Magistrates work and then shall he have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another tho' publick Conscience for every man shall bear his own burden Gal. 6.4 5. Is it not false Doctrine in the Papists to teach that Believers only as the Church believes are discharged in God's Account Is it not the general consent of sound Protestants that neither Traditions Councils nor Canons of any visible Church much less any Edicts of any Magistrate or Civil Session but the Scripture only can be the final Judge or Rule in matrers of Religion and that only in the Conscience of every Christian to himself For if the Church be not sufficient to be implicitly and blindly believed as certain it is not what can there else be named of more Authority than the Church but the Conscience than which God only is greater 1 John 3.20 But if any shall pretend that the Scripture judges to his Conscience for other Men as this proud and saucy Politician doth he makes himself greater than the Church Scripture or Consciences of other Men a presumption too high for any mortal since every true Christian able to give a reason of his Faith hath the word of God before him the promised holy Spirit and the mind of Christ within him 1 Cor. 2.16 A much better and safer guide of Conscience than this Polititian in publick Conscience who in this is no less a Pope than the Pope at Rome The Spiritual man judgeth all things but himself is judged of no man 1 Cor. 2.15 And is not the Pope deservedly esteemed Antichristian for appropriating to himself such Infallibity over both Conscience and Scripture Whether tends all this but to make themselves to have Dominion over our Faith and Lords over God's Heritage which the Aposties utterly disclaimed and accounted themselves only helpers of cur joy and to be feeders of the flock not by constraint but willingly 1 Pet. 5.2 3. 2 Cor. 1.24 If Bishop Saunderson can judge The Word of God doth expresly forbid us to subject our Consciences to the Judgment of any other or to usurp Dominion over the Consciences of any other Saunderson's 10 Lectures 1660. v. 3. Lect. 30. § p. 103. None but God alone hath Power to impose a Law upon the Conscience of any Man to which it ought to be subjected as obliging by it self For there is but one Law-giver who can both save and destroy James 4.12 not one picked out amongst many not one above many but one exclusively i. e. one and but one onely who art thou that dost judge another It doth not belong to thee to thrust thy sawcy Sickle into the Harvest of another Man much less to fling thy self into the Throne of Almighty God to him it belongeth alone to judge of the Consciences of Men to whom alone it doth belong to impose Laws on the Consciences of men which none can do but God alone Conscientiis Dominari velle est Arcem Coeli invadere said Maximilian the first To exercise a Domination over Consciences is to invade the Power of Heaven He is a plunderer of the Glory of God and an usurper of that Tower that is due unto him that claims a right to the Consciences of Men or practise an usurpation over them v. Lect. 4. § 9 10 11. He tells us moreover That if Princes will be Resolute and if they will Govern so they must be they may easily make the most stubborn Consciences to bend to their Resolutions pag. 271. Princes must be sure to bind on at first their Ecclesiastical Laws with the straitest knot and afterwards keep them in force by the severity of their execution pag. 221. So easie is it for Men to deserve to be punished for their Consciences that there is no Nation in the World in which were Government rightly understood and duly managed mistakes and abuses of Religion would not supply the Gallies with vastly greater Numbers than Villanies pag. 223. Brave Doctrines for a Tory Church of England Man to Preach impuné Sure this Anonimus Ecclesiastical Polititian would make a brave Mufty or Inquisitor General or a Compito with a Dog-whip in his Hand which would affright worse than the Inquisition and make many much honester Men than himself know sorrow in abundance These and many more Positions of the same complexion are the Farci of that Pestilent Book which well becomes a thorough-paced Church of England Priest such Positions and Doctrines brings contempt on such of the Clergy as being a reproach to any Church and which the Church of England doth not Teach and which are so vile that they much more deserve Fire and Faggot than those burnt in Oxford July 1683. but instead thereof he was made a Bishop Whether tends all this treacherous dealings with the People of God Whilst like the Ministers of Jeroboam ye lay such Snares in Mispah and spread such Nets upon Tabor teaching and perswading Kings to use Laws Menaces and Subtilties to force and confine the People to Regal and State Religion be it true or false or at least to force them to dissemble or to walk in a neutrality or indifferency between God and Baal or else to make the Souls of Men and God's Glory subordinate to the Lusts and Risings of Kings and Priests who Balaam-like for the hope of Honour or Preferments or like Micha's Levite for a little better reward crouch and cringe and
SOME REMARKS Recommended unto Ecclesiasticks OF ALL PERSWASIONS NOT to trouble you with Prefaces or Apologies it is certain That as in the Church of the Jews they were not all Israel that were of Israel Rom. 9.6 so in our Church they have not all been nor yet are all true Church of England-men who boast and pride themselves in monopolizing that Character to themselves And yet I hope I may with great Truth affirm That the Independant Protestant Church of England is the best constituted Church both for Doctrine and Discipline in the World and that there are both in our Hierarchie and in our Inferior Clergy many seven shining Stars many true Nathaniels indeed in whom is no guile John 1.47 and yet I fear in the same Church that as there hath been so there are still many seven deadly Sinners Linsey-wolsey Divines not much unlike those of Samaria who feared God yet served Idols or like those of Israel who swore by the Lord and Melcom Whoever will seriously and impartially consider and examine the Prints of Dr. Leighton Pryn Bastwick and Burton and compare them with the Prints of Harsenet Parker late Bishop of Oxon Montague Sybthorp Manwaring and others must conclude the Doctrines and Positions of these Men to be far more pernicious and destructive to whole Kingdoms than the other and better deserved their punishment than to be rewarded with Preferments as they were And then if we consider how Instrumental some Prelates of those times were in Punishing the one and Preferring the other contrary to all true Religion and to the genius and sense of the most Pious of the Nation thereby manifestly espousing their Cause to be their own whereby they became participes criminis by which misbehaviour of theirs they brought upon themselves contempt and the Nation abhorred them and would not be satisfied untill they had disenabled them by Act of Parliament 17 Car. And if we consider the Opinions that the late Bishop of Oxon. otherwise a pious worthy Prelate sacrificed to the Flames in July 1683 and the purport of the Address of the other University to his Majesty in September 1681. And also the Contents of very many Sermons preached on the Ninth of September 1683. Besides very many others rank of one and the same poysonous Leaven all squinting towards Arbitrary Power and as much as in them lies alluring and encouraging Kings to attempt the same by rendring them absolutely Absolute and unaccountable until Dooms-day in the Afternoon whereby they become only Nominal I had almost said Mungril Church-of-England-men but not true Israelites not true Nathaniels indeed These things considered how can I expect less than a whole host of Chemarims about my Ears But when I consider that according to the Doctrine of the Church of England the Word of God is the only Rule of Faith and Obedience and disapproves all implicite Faith blind Obedience and Infallibility and that we are not to imbibe Doctrines on trust and expect Salvation by a deputy Faith and Obedience And that St. Paul exhorts us that we be no more henceforth children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4.14 And the Scripture it self counts it nobleness of mind to examine the doctrines of our Teachers whether those things are so Act 17.11 And the Angel of the Church of Ephesus highly commended for that he had tried them which said they were Apostles and were not and found them lyers Revel 2.2 And St. Paul bids us prove all things and hold fast that which is good 1 Thess 5.21 Sure then after such Apostolical Precepts it is no crime to inquire whether they that boast of being Church-of-England-men are so in truth or no. I appeal to your selves Is it Fair nay is it Just nay Is it not Pride and Folly to assert Truth by arrogating to your selves the only freedom of Speech and stopping of Mouths and Pens and Press and burning Opinions of others equally gifted and furnished with the same means of knowledge with your selves and have like precious Souls to save as your selves and yet can let Popish Books and other vile Tenets be published and read as common as your own without Controul Fire or Faggot and connive at them but storm against Protestant Conventicles and can let Swearers Drunkards Whoremungers and Adulterers march openly and confidently in our Streets without so much as the Summons of an Apparitor or Excommunication Tacitus intending to write the Life of Agricola Incursurus tam saeva infest a virtutibus tempora did beg Pardon which otherwise he would not have done considering that Aurelius Rusticus for praising Paetus Thrasea calling him virum sanctum was put to Death by Nero virtutem ipsam exscindere concupiscens And also Herennius Senecio because he had written the Life of Helvidius Priscus another Cato or Brutus a Person of most free Speech in behalf of the Commonwealth for calling them most Holy and Upright Persons Besides severity was used against the Writers of Books charge being given to the Aediles and Triumviri capitales that the Works of those Noble Wits should solemnly be burnt in the Market-place supposing that with that Fire they could stop the Mouths of the People of Rome abolish the Liberty of the Senate and suppress the Knowledge of all Mankind Expelling withall the Professors of Wisdom and all good Learning and Arts lest any sparks of Honesty should remain Hence Sulpitia a Poetess of that time Nunc igitur qui res Romanas imperat inter Et studia sapiens hominum nomenque genusque Omnia abice foras atque urbe excedere jussit A very noble and pious Example taken from Heathenish Princes for Christians to imitate We naturally love nay long for forbidden Fruit and are most inquisitive after Books forbidden as being always jealous that some Truths lie dormant in such ready to fly in the Faces of those that forbid them and make wise Men conclude That Reason cannot stand on their side who will not suffer the Reasons of both Parties to be read and published Gospel Truths need no such Artifices Souls purely divine without mixtures and allay of little pittiful ends and interests do scorn the motion lest happily some Divine Truths may by such sinister devices be suppressed and stifled And others being of the contrary Opinion diametrically opposite one to the other and each differing no farther from the one than the other from them and neither Infallible what would you have us poor Laicks do death and damnation being pulpited against us by both Perswasions as one Opinion or the other happeneth to possess the Pulpit 1. I say That the differences among us are occasioned not as Christians but as Men. The Gospel is the Gospel of Peace Peace was the last Legacy that Christ left to his Church My peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you John 14.27 And his
command was to have peace one with another Mark 9.50 and the unity of the spirit is preserved by the bond of peace Ephes 4.3 But the little self-ends of Earth and Interest of the Preferments Ambition and Domination is the cause of Controversies Animosities and Contentions to which Priests are as subject as others 2. I say There were false Prophets among the Jews and was foretold that as there were false Prophets among them so there should be false teachers among us 2 Pet. 2.1 And St. Paul forewarned the Bishop of Ephesus That out of your own selves should arise men speaking perverse things Acts 20.30 and Christ himself when he cautioneth us to beware of false Prophets by calling which shall be found false by their teaching St. Paul also granteth many to be ministers of Christ by profession and yet in words and deeds the ministers of Satan 2 Cor. 11.13 14 15. such false Apostles saith he are deceitful workers and transform themselves into the Apostles of Christ and for certain these Priests of such different Perswasions Principles and Doctrines cannot both be in the right and therefore good Reason that if poor Laicks are to live and die Eternally according to the Doctrines our Pastors pulpit to us it is but just and right that we should try the Spirits as commanded John 1.41 and judg of Doctrine as directed Cor. 10.15 for certainly we are not to live by the deputy Faith of our Officers but by our own Faith and must stand and fall accordingly Now seeing our Teachers cannot agree Doctrines as in point of Resistance and Passive Obedience taking and refusing new Oaths Ceremonies Conformity as well as in many others they do not and both cannot be in the right then are their Flocks in a very sad condition Pulpit-rebels both to the one and to the other as the one or the other prevails for neither are Infallible so that we are clearly left to be our own Judges and both Priest and People have no other Divine Rule or Authority without them warrantable to one another as a common Ground or Rule either for Holy living or decision of Controversies in Matters of Religion unto which all ought to submit but the Scriptures nor any other within either Priest or People But the Illumination of the Spirit so interpreting the same Scriptures as warrantable both to Priests and People and to such whose Consciences they can so perswade can have no other ground in matters of Religion but only from the same Scriptures and these not being possible to be understood without Divine Illumination which no man can know at all times to be in himself much less to be at any time for certain in another and therefore the Scriptures being the only infallible Rule of life and of judging Controversies and the Light within us no farther Light than wherein it agrees with this Word if it do not it is Darkness not Light Now these things considered will justifie our taking up the Cudgels for our own Defence and Justification in these great and dangerous Disputes having Souls Lives Fortunes Liberties to save and enjoy as well as Ecclesiasticks Though the Church of England be the best constituted Church in the World wherein the lively Oracles of God are purely Preached and full fraught with many very worthy pious and learned Priests and Prelates yet there are amongst them many false Prophets and no wonder was not there a Judas among the Twelve and false Teachers nay very many time-servers that pimp for Domination Honors Preferments and other vile and base ends and like Micha's Levite for a little better reward swallow any thing stick at nothing by School-quirks and false Reasonings perverting Scriptures to rob whole Kingdoms of their Laws Liberties and Religion that daub with untempered Mortar flatter Profaneness court and allure Royalties to Perjury and Robbery whilst they Preach Quod libet licet and Sovereignty absolutely Absolute to be in Kings and their unaccountableness betray Truths smothering and dissembling the Strictness and Purity of holy Ways I contend not here against the lazy Drones that suck the Hony from the Bees by their Non-residency nor against the Dammees Euphoniae gratia these are personal Sins and hurt others only by Example and such there are but my contest is against those Ecclesiasticks who living and had interest at the upper end of the World not only usurped more Powers than they had right unto but abused those Powers and that Interest they had at Court from which abuse of Power pulpiting Divine Prerogatives of Kings beyond measure their unaccountableness misconstruing and extending Passive Obedience beyond its just Bounds Which have been the Harrangues of Prints and Pulpits till their own Copiholds came to be concerned come all the disturbances of Government in Church and State to whole Kingdoms No wonder then if contempt be poured on such of the Clergy and on such of them only as Preach such destructive Doctrines as deserve the severe Reprimand of whole Kingdoms for thereby all Laws Liberty Property Religion and Honesty would be trampled under foot Therefore it 's no Crime in the Laity to stand up in the defence of their own Rights and Concerns As it is the duty of Priests Ministers of the Gospel to teach us with Wisdom and Knowledge so it is our duty to esteem them highly in love if they do so for their Works sake and they that labour in the Word and Doctrine are worthy of double Honour and double Revenue they cannot have too much but they that do not Teach us with Knowledge and Understanding are worthy of neither but when they abuse and usurp Powers they have no right unto and claim them as their due by the most Potent Claim in the World Jure Divino monstrum horrendum Witness Excommunication because there hath as of old so of more late Days so much ill use made thereof of which I shall only say with Erastus de Excommunicatione that there is no such thing as it is now used in all the Scripture in Sanctis Scripturâ—s nullum extat mandatum sed commentum est pure humanum p. 67. Which renders the Execution thereof abominable To wrest Scripture to maintain such unlawful Powers doth very ill become the Priests of the most High God As it is their Duty to Teach so it is our Priviledge and Right to judge of their Doctrines yea and to put them in mind and admonish them also of their duty Coloss 4.17 Mistake me not as if this were bent against the Bishops only no no Papist Presbyter Independant are all to blame in this Point and it 's no excuse to us if we are deceived by the cunning Crastiness of our Ghostly Fathers whereby they lie in wait to deceive Let us look a little back no farther than our own Times and Memories and let them stand or fall in the good Graces of the Kingdom according to their Merits or Demerits Rushworth 644 1628. In the time of
deny their Communinn that are as capable of Heaven without the use of them as themselves with the use of them To the Council met at Jerusalem Acts 15. consisting of Apostles and all the faithful in the Church and to the Holy Ghost it seemed good to lay upon them no greater burthen than things necessary yet some of our Mungril Church of England Men taking themselves to be wiser than either the Apostles or the Holy Ghost have dared to impose Ceremonies and Observances no way necessary nor conducing to the Saving of Souls or Edification yea and more strictly requiring Conformity unto them punishing more severely the breach of them than the breach of Gods Precepts Tho' to err manifestly against the Scriptures be the most dangerous and greatest blindness that can possibly befal any Christian and the greatest Chastisement that God can impose in punishment of them whoever shall make use of the Divine Authority to serve their own turns in any worldly Interests yet so active is the Zeal of Priests of enlarging their own Phylacteries their Greatness and Impery that they make no Bones of wresting and perverting any Scripture Old or New to make it serve their turns which in plain English is to make Godliness wait upon Gain Pride and Ambition Let us now also add and consider the grand Pique these Priestly Court Parasites pure Church of England Men have had against Puritans the sober and thinking part of the Nation and Puritanism of old and the same under the names of Whigs and Phanaticks the Arts and Tricks they have used to suppress the Purity and Power of Religion by reviling their Persons decrying and suppressing Lectures on the Week-days Sermons on Sundays in the Afternoon and Conventicles and giving encouragement to Idleness Looseness and Prophaness in the People Witness the Book allowing Sports on the Lord's Day Printed 1633. and the Countenance given thereto by the then Court Prelates and Prelatical Priests who procured a Royal Proclamation to justifie the same And Archbishop Laud sequestred Mr. Wilson four Years for not Reading that Book and prosecuted him in the High Commission Court for not Reading the Prayers of the last Edition commanded by the Archbishop Nalson 571. Who yet Countenanced Publick Sports on the Lord's-Day by the Examples of the Reformed Churches beyond Sea and for the Publick Dances of our Youth upon Country Greens on Sundays after the Duties of the Day so Bishop Bramhall otherwise a pious Person and stout assertor of the Protestant Religion against Popery who sees nothing in them but innocent and agreeable to that under sort of People who likewise takes the promiscuous License to unqualified Persons to read the Scripture to be far more prejudicial nay more pernicious than the over rigorous restraint of the Romanists p. 641 642 643. This may be the Court Dialect and Prelatical Gospel but certainly not Apostolical for the same Equity for keeping the Sabbath strictly yea very strictly not Jewishly Ceremonious is as incumbent and obliging unto us under the Gospel at this Day as to the Jews under the Law I cannot understand such Liberty to be keeping of the Sabbath but rather a polluting of it Isai 56.2 6. Keeping of the Sabbath is not to rest only from bodily Labour but to abstain from doing our own pleasures and our own ways and not speaking our own words Isai 58.13 14. and abstaining from the delights of Sin as well as from the Works of our ordinary Callings What! weary of strict keeping the Sabbaths here and yet presume on the expectation of an Eternity which shall be nothing else but Sabbaths Certainly our Sabbaths here are but an Earnest and a Pledge of that Eternal Sabbath which we desire to Celebrate with Saints and Angels in Heavenly Places I wonder how so Pious a Prince and of such mighty Insight and Understanding could be so imposed upon by his Prelates and to Countenance such a Book by his Proclamation I wonder also how Bishop Bramball could shew such dislike of unqualified Persons Reading the Scriptures when to search them is a Precept Universal and to judge of Doctrines also and whereas there 's nothing in them of absolute necessity to Salvation to be believed but what is very obvious and intelligible to every indifferent capacity Bold Church of England Men that dare to be wiser than Almighty God by taking upon them to foresee Dangers that God never did foresee and to prevent them by such Methods as thwart God's own Appointments Beyond all peradventure such Doctrines such Practices such Methods can never conduce to the Benefit and Service of God's Holy Church and Chosen or to the Putity or Propagation of the Gospel but are rather a muzling of their Mouths who should tread out their Corn which should bring forth the food of Life Everlasting unto the People However tho' there have been such Priests and Prelates that have so acted yet I am not of their Opinion who therefore deemed them Papists in Heart No no some of them have given abundant Testimony to the contrary by their worthy Works as of Archbishop Laud Bramball and others But it is too plain that they improved what Interest they had at the upper end of the World towards tho Setting up and Advancing the Power Impery and Grandeur of the Church Men and to keep the Laiety under and did not improve their Interest towards advancing the Purity and Simplicity of the Gospel or towards the making of a high way of Holiness through out the Land that way-fairing men though fools might not err therein Isai 35.8 that being certainly their greater Duty to have bestowed themselves and their Interest on the benefit and Service of the Church rather than of the Pride and Ambition of Church Men. Thus much by way of Caution to prevent the like for the future being of Opinion that the Persecuting Dissenters and Conventicles is as National a Sin as Drinking Drabbing and Swearing and ought to be as nationally to be lamented both by Clergy and Laiety For I must confess my self absolutely ignorant of any one thing or signal Constitution from the very beginning of the Reformation to this very day to which the Dissenters were required to conform and submit that was essentially necessary either to the Salvation of Souls or to the more pure and sincere Preaching of the Gospel unto which they deenid their Conformity or Submission They would yet very much oblige us if they would make known unto us such Constitutions if any such there be for if in truth they have not been such then the Imposers not the Dissenters are the Separatists and Schismaticks for tho very self same Reasons that the Papists are Schismaticks not Protestants And I am afraid that it is not Conscience but finister ends that makes Prelates contend so out of measure for things no way Essential to Salvation According to St. Cyprian In sinu sacerdorum ambitio dormit ibi sub umbrâ recubat in Secreto Tholami
fraudulenter occultar nihil intentatum praetermittit 442. About the Year 1558 there being a Custom among the People of Paris in the Summer Evenings to go out of the Suburbs of St. German in great Multitudes to take the Fresco and to Solace themselves with divers kinds of Sports those of the new Religion instead of doing so began to sing the Psalms of David in French Verses the Multitude first laughed at the Novelty then leaving the Sports joyned themselves unto the Singers And the number of those who came to that place began to increase more than usually whereupon the Pope's Nuntio told the King of this Novelty as of a thing pernicious and dangerous because the Ministeries of Religion usually Celebrated in the Church in the Latin Tongue by Religious Men only were put into the Mouths of the common People in the Vulgar Language which was an invention of the Lutherans telling him that if he did not resist the beginnings in a short time all Paris would be Lutherans the King gave order that the principal Authors should be proceeded against wherein they went not very far having found Anthony King of Navar and his Wife in that Number but for hereafter it was forbid upon pain of Death Trent 410. Thus you see how both the Hugonots and Papists behaved themselves beyond Sea and that the King and Queen of Navar were not ashamed to Conventicle openly nor of Christ nor of his Words lest Christ should be ashamed of them when he shall come in his own Glory and in his Fathers and of the Holy Angels Luke 9.26 not ashamed to search the Scriptures in their own Language because commanded and because in them is eternal life John 5.39 This Nation and Government did presume at least that such solemn Rebukes such severe Reprimands as the Preachers of such Doctrines received from the whole Kingdom represented in Parliament by King Lords and Commons Clergy and Layety should have forewarned and discouraged all the succeeding Clergy for ever Preaching such destructive Doctrines again of which we now see and feel the smart and sad effects which our prudent Predecessors did foresee and would have prevented by their timely Rebukes and Precautions but they have not prevailed In the Church of Ephesus there were those that boasted themselves to be Apostles but being tried by the Angel of that Church were found Lyars Is it not so with us Have we not many that boast themselves to be the only true Church of England Men that if tried by our Angels would be found but Mungrils nay Lyars making Kings glad with their Wickedness and Princes with their Lyes Hos 7.3 But the Works and Labour and Patience of our true Church of England Men true Nathaniels indeed cannot bear such Church of England Men as are so evil as to dare to Preach and Print such enslaving Doctrines Nay now at this very Day it s a shame to tell how such false Prophets use the Church of the Great God by making Her a very Tool and Slave to serve their own turns and to bring their own ends about not caring what havock they make of the Purity and Simplicity of the Gospel Mr. Clifford on Psalm 51.4 pulpits That Kings as such are above the Law have Power to Dispense with the Law at their Pleasure and alter Religion at Pleasure pag. 7. Mr. J. T in his Sermon on Eccles 10.20 declares That Resistance in all Cases and in all its Degrees and Circumstances absolutely unlawful because it supposes an Appeal of the People from the King to themselves and makes them Judges of their own Causes for to place Sovereignty and the last Appeal in all the People together is perfect nonsense because all the People will never be of one mind while the World stands pag. 8.9 and I will add nor all the Clergy And yet he is so ingenious as to confess That the Interest of a Nation is to be preferred before the Interest or Welfare of one Man according to John 11.49 50 51. It is expedient for us that one man dye for the People and that the whole Nation perish not So that we have a sure word of Prophesie that it is the Testimony of God himself That a greater Interest of Mankind is to be preferred before a lesser pag. 20 21. As perfect nonsense as this Priest is pleased to make Appeals unto the People to be yet so wise were the Roman State above Fifty Years before Christ's time and so careful of their own Happiness Rights and Interests that they thought it even then a most prudent Law And therefore Publius Valerius caused it to be an Establish't Law That Appeals should be allowed from any Magistrate to the People Livy lib. 3. n. 8. And that no Man should offer to make any Magistrate without liberty of Appeal and if he did it should be lawful to kill him Ibid. lib. 3. n. 34. For which prudent Law they honored him by adding Publicola to his other name What the Power of the First Kings were appears for that Ephron Chief Prince of the Children of Heth would not grant Abraham the possession of a Sepulchre in the Land of the Children of Heth but in the presence and with the approbation of the Children of Heth before all that went in at the gate of his City Gen. 23. Nor would Hamor Prince of the Country make a League with Jacob but by the consent of all that went out of the gate of his City Gen. 34. because all the great Concerns of the Governed was referred unto the Common Council and consent of the People which in those Empires was easily done which commonly was circumscribed within one or few Cities But when Kings began to enlarge their Territorios so that all the People could not Assemble in one Place without danger of confusion there were ordinarily instituted Tribunes of the People or Officers of the Kingdom or of the Governed to assist and defend the Rights and Priviledges of the People granted to them by the Law of God and Nature and upon great Exigences great Assemblies of the Sages of the Governed were assembled as an Epitome of the Universal People were extraordinarily congregated to consider and consult thereof In the Israelitish Kingdom which by consent and judgment of all Politick Writers was the best constituted Government of the World was the same order observed the King had his particular Officers and the Kingdom theirs Seventy one Elders their Captains chosen out of every Tribe which both in War and Peace should take care of the whole Magistrates also in singulis Municipiis that as they were to take care of the whole so the several Officers were to take care of their particular Cities and Charges over which they were set For David called all the Congregation when he desired to Invest Solomon in his Kingdom when he had restored the Policy of that Nation to have it examined and approved 1 Chron. 19. So when David was to fetch back
the Ark c. 1 Chron. 13. which Officers because they represented the People it is said the People came together so the People rescued Jonathan whom Saul had appointed to die 1 Sam. 14.45 by which it appears that an Appeal did lie from the King to the People So the Kingdom of Israel was rent from Rehoboam by the People by which it appears that the Synedrium of Seventy one at Jerusalem had the Authority that as Kings did judge particular Persons so these had the Power to judge Kings The Hogen-Mogen words of Sovereign and Supreme are but verba solennia words of Course and Complemental but confer no Power what Great and Sovereign Powers Kings by Right have are given and limited by Laws of common Consent and not Absolute what other Laws of Sovereignty there are of Right that belong to them is past all Understanding absolute Sovereignty in Kings hath no warrant beyond any Divine Law that belongs only to God who is Lord of all the Kingdoms of the Earth And though Appeals to all the People may be Nonsence yet it is very good Sense to Appeal to their Epitomy their Representatives their Ephori and Tribunes to the Laws and to the Legislators which are the Supreme and Sovereign Power of the Nation and have an equal share in making our Laws The Commons House 4. Car. 1628 having prepared a Petition to present to his Majesty sent it to the Lords for their concurrence who returned it adding these words viz. With due regard to leave intire the Sovereign Power wherewith your Majesty is intrusted for the Protection Safety and Happiness of the People Which terms of Sovereign Power were so distasteful to the Commons as looking being free from any condition and that they were no part of the Law no Parliamentary words that they weakned Magna Charta and all our Statutes that by intendment and implication they might give a Sovereign Power above all those Laws c. and therefore would by no means admit thereof tho' strongly contested for by the Lords Rush 568. These and such like were the things that made the Parliament in 1641 Remonstrate to his Majesty That the most Publick and Solemn Sermons before his Majesty were either to advance Prerogative above Law or decry the Property of the Subject and thereby lay a foundation of difference between the King and his People or else Invectives to make those odious who sought to maintain the Religion and Laws of the Kingdom and to have them weeded out of all Commissions or other Imployments of Power in the Government that the Bishops and others of the Clergy did by their Suspensions Excommunications Deprivations and Degradations of divers painful learned and pious Ministers oppress his Majesty's Subjects that the High Commission Court and the Courts of the Bishops did exceed in sharpness and severity little less than the Romish Inquisition that those were fittest for Ecclesiastical Preferments and soonest obtained them who were most virulent against Godliness and Honesty and used means to suppress the Purity and Power of Religion and to increase and maintain ignorance looseness and prophaness in the People that the Archbishops and other Bishops and Clergy continued the Convocation by a new Commission and turned it to a Provincial Synod in which by an unheard of Presumption they made Canons that contained in them many matters contrary to the Kings Prerogative to the fundamental Laws and Statutes of the Realm to the Right of Parliaments to the Property and Liberty of the Subject and matters tending to Sedition and of dangerous Consequence thereby establishing their own Usurpations justifying their Altar-worship and those other Superstitions and Innovations which they formerly introduced without warrant of Law They imposed a new Oath upon divers of his Majesty's Subjects both Ecclesiastical and Lay for maintaining their own Tyranny and laid a great Tax upon the Clergy for supply of his Majesty and generally they shewed themselves very affectionate to the War with Scotland which was the beginning of all our future mischief and by themselves stiled Bellum Episcopale all their pretended Canons and Constitutions were armed with several censures of Suspension Excommunication Deprivation by which they would have thrust out all the good Ministers and most of the well affected People of the Kingdom and left an easie passage to their own design of Reconciliation with Rome Remonstr Decemb. 15. 1641. This is no new way of Remonstrating against such ill Church of England Men designing to enslave a free Kingdom by their Doctrines For in the Parliament 1625 the House of Commons did Article against Mr. Ric. Montague that he might be punished and his Book burnt for his impious and profane scoffing at Preaching Meditations and Conferrences which in plain English is Conventickling Pulpits Lectures Bible and all shew of Religion and for casting the odious name of Puritans on Orthodox Men. Rushworth 215. And in the Parliament 1628 the Commons did Remonstrate against Dr. Neal Bishop of Winton and Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells that there hath been no small labouring to remove that which is the most powerful means to strengthen and increase our own Religion and to oppose both those which is the diligent Teaching and Instructing in the true Knowledge and Worship of God and therefore means have been sought out to depress and discountenance Pious Painful and Orthodox Preachers how conformable soever and Peaceable in their Disposition and Carriage they be yet the preferment of such is opposed and instead of being encouraged they are molested with vexatious Courses and Punishments and hardly permitted to Lecture Rushworth 215 633 634. What were they also in their Opinion but high and mighty Church of England Men against whom the Parliament 4 Car. 1628. did Declare and Remonstrate That with a wicked and malicious intention to seduce and misguide the Conscience of the Kings most Excellent Majesty touching the observation of the Laws and Customs of this Kingdom and of the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects to incense his Royal Displeasure against his good Subjects so refusing to scandalize subvert and impeach the good Laws and Government of this Realm and the Authority of the High Court of Parliament to Alienate his Royal Heart from his People and to cause Jealousies Sedition and Division in the Kingdom who did Teach that his Majesty is not bound to keep and observe the good Laws and Customs of this Realm concerning the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects And that his Royal Will and Command in imposing Loans and Taxes and other Aids upon the People without common consent in Parliament doth so far bind the Consciences of Subjects that they cannot refuse the same without peril of Eternal Damnation that those who refused the Loan did therein offend against the Law of God against his Majesty's Supreme Authority and by so doing became guilty of Impiety Disloyalty Rebellion and Disobedience and liable to many other Taxes and Censures that Authority of Parliament
is not necessary for the Raising of Aids and Subsidies Rush 602. An. 1628. That there was a general fear of secret Working and Combination to introduce into this Kingdom Innovation and change of our pure Religion by Persons much favoured and advanced not wanting Friends even of the Clergy near to your Majesty namely Dr. Neal Bishop of Winchester and Dr. Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells who are justly suspected to be unsound in their Opinions that way It being generally held to be the High-way to Preferment and Promotion in the Church many Scholars do bend the course of their Studies to maintain those Errors that their Books and Opinions are suffered to be printed and published and others written against them and in defence of the Orthodox Church are hindered and prohibited And we find that there hath been no small labouring to remove that which is the most powerful means to strengthen and increase our own Religion and to oppress Popery which is the diligent Teaching and Instruction of the People in the true Knowledg and Worship of God and therefore means have been sought out to depress and discountenance Pious Painful and Orthodox Preachers peaceable in their Disposition and Carriage and yet their Preferment of such is opposed and instead of being encouraged they are molested with vexatious courses and pursuits hardly permitted to Lecture 602 632 634. 1628. Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Quae peperit saepè scelerata atque impia facta 195. And our high and mighty Church of England Men did in our memories so superciliously manage their own haughty Resolutions that they necessitated the Parliament to take away their High Commission and their Parliamentary Priviledge forbidding them to meddle with any Temporal Affairs And I do not find that they are grown much more prudent yet for that they manage themselves in this intricate juncture of time at such a rate that all Mens Mouths are ready and stand half cockt against them and I fear may in time provoke the Parliament to do the like or more again they monopolizing all Government over others of themselves which is far from being Apostolical for in the Apostles times and divers Ages after all the People being under the inspection of one Bishop vulgarly the the Pastor of a Parish were wont to meet together not only for Worship but other Church Administrations all publick Acts passed at the Assemblies of the whole People they were consulted with their concurrence was thought necessary and their presence required that nothing might pass without their Cognizance Satisfaction and Consent This was observed not only in Election of Bishops Priests and Officers but in Ordination and Censures in Admission of Members and Reconciling of Penitents and in Debates and Consultations about other Emergencies but not one plain word in Scripture that one Apostle was subject to another nor one gathered Church subject to another or that any Man had lawful Authority to forbid Assembling of the Brethren together whether with or without a Priest In summ when Priest-craft had enlarged their Territories beyond their ancient Bounds which was but one Parish or a select Number scarce exceeding 150 or 200 unto many whereby they became Cardinals and Diocesans c. They thereby cajoled the People of their undoubted Rights and Priviledges and necessarily introduced an essential change of the True and Primitive Government of the Church set up by Christ and set up one to fit their own turn and ends In the very next Ages succeeding the Apostles and so for 400 Years and more one Parish or single Congregation was thought sufficient for one Bishop or Pastor so that as Christians multiplied so separate Congregations Bishops or Pastors so that there were as many Pastors or Bishops as there were several Congregations or Churches in a Province and not one Church or Congregation subject to the Laws Usages or Ordinances of any other No Churches gathered by St. Paul were subject to those gathered by St. Peter nor è contra of them or of any other of the Apostles or of any Churches gathered by their Successors Hence came several and diversity of Rites and Usages in the Ancient Churches without being accounted Schismaticks Separatists Non-cons or Phanaticks and with perfect Love Unity and Uniformity because they held the same Faith and Doctrine And 150 or 200 Souls was thought as many as one Bishop or one Pastor could take charge and give a good account of So that a single Congregation or gathered Church was esteemed a competent Charge for an Episcopal Pastor for the Episcopal Churches were daily multiplied and each Church had Power to govern and order it self and so followed such orders as every Church or gathered Congregation thought fit without being obliged to conform to those of any other Church or Congregation they had no Rule or Order in things of this nature requiring observance or did they regard such Uniformity as later Ages have been fond of to the prejudice of the Unity and Peace of the Church even to the persecuting of Righteous Men in our Kingdoms none of those Churches used the same Prayers all of them had not the same Creeds they had not the same Rites in Baptism or the Lord's Supper nor the same way in Confirming Marrying or Burying they used not the same mode either in reading the Scriptures or Singing they observed not the same methods in admitting Members or preparing them for the Communion neither proceeding to Censures or reconciling Penitents they differed also in their Habits and Postures they varied in their Fasts both for time and manner and observed not the same Festivals This was the Uniformity of the more Pure and Primitive times and no Persecution ensued no Appeals allowed from one Bishop or one Congregation to another So that the Uniformity the latter Ages have been so fond of is a down-right Novelty and Innovation which hath broken the Bond of Charity and Unity and instead thereof hath brought in Animosities Divisions and Separations nay Persecutions on God's Holy People very unworthy and unbeseeming Christian Pastors to make such actings more their business than the suppressings of Sin and promoting of real and strict Holiness All this and much more is so plain in ancient Writers that none but Novices and Chits in Story can be ignorant hereof If you will believe one of the greatest Prelates of the West and at no less than 600 Years distance from Christ In una fide nibil officit Sanctae Ecclesiae diversa consuetudo saith Gregory the first where there is one Faith it s no harm to the Church if there be diversity of usages i. e. the Church hath no harm for want of Uniformity And before him Innocent the first who lived about the Second Century in his Epist ad Decen writes that diversè in diversis locis vel Ecclesiis obtineri aut celebrari videntur To the Justification whereof and to the constant Practice thereof even from the Days of the Apostles unto
this very Day gives abundant Testimony the Churches of the Vaudois called Waldenses Albigenses poor Men of Lyons Chaignard Tramontani Lollards Siccari Fraticelli Gazares Turlepini c. and for their Simplicity Purity and Sincerity termed Evangelical having been for many Hundreds of Years injured reproached despised banished excommunicated anathematized Goods confiscated tortured wearing Miters in derision reviled spit upon Ears cropt their Flesh pincht off with Princers drawn with Horses drag'd up and down broiled roasted stoned to death burnt drowned dismembred smothered in Caves by hellish Papists c. who have preserved themselves from the infection of External Ministries of other Churches defiled with infinite human invention It being the Tenth Article of their Belief viz. That the inventions of Men are an unspeakable abomination before God And their custom is That if any of their Barbes their Pastors shall fall into any foul or unclean Sin he is cast out of their company and forbidden the Charge of Preaching They Teach also Article 15. That because the differences of Ceremonies Customs and Rites which are used in several Churches and are not prejudicial or hurtful to Piety they ought not to be offended one with another or contemn hate and persecute one another And Ph. Melancthon is of the same mind in his Epistle to Mr. Benedict and the rest of the Waldenses viz. that no difference and variety of Rites and Ceremonies ought to disunite our Minds Now if the Churches of the Valleys have been Celebrated through all Ages of the Church as they have been and are yet even to this day as the Worshippers of God in the greatest Purity and Simplicity and nearest the Purity and Simplicity of Christ and his Apostles and the least tainted with Romish Superstitions and human Inventions with what Face can Protestants Persecute Protestants for things indifferent desiring to Worship God in the same Simplicity Purity and Sincerity If the true Church of England be to be known by her Faith Doctrine Articles and Sacraments then beyond all contradiction the Non-con Presbyters and Independants are more truly right Church of England Men maugre all the Obloquies and ungrounded Prejudices against them than those that so imperiously appropriate and usurp that Name to themselves and happily a more sincere Homogeneal part of the Church Catholick without infringing Unity of Faith or true Doctrine But if Ceremonies or Usages not prescribed nor used by Christ or his Apostles in the purest Times must make the distinction then certainly their Non-conformity is more agreeable to the Practice of Christ and his Apostles and the Primitive Times than the Ceremonial Usages and Practices of these later Ages for it must appear upon due examination that there was not one Ceremony either used or commanded in their times and yet Converts as many and then it will certainly and undeniably follow that all those Ceremonies introduced since are Innovations and consequently those that impose them on Severities and Censures are the Innovators and Separatists I had almost said Schismaticks tho' some with Brows of Brass have cast those odious Names on the Presbyters and Independants For those that impose Rites and Ceremonies no ways Essential to the saving of Souls on Penalties and Severities especially unto Silencing and Suspension to which conscientious Persons cannot submit must be the Schismaticks or else our Separation from Rome can hardly be justified If such Tenets and Practices must be the Test and Character of true Church of England Men I must confess my self not as yet so well qualified and I believe few others yet are more true Church of England Men for indeed I have no mind to make Religion lackey and hunt after earthly ends and purposes lest by pertaking with other Mens Sins I should receive of their Plagues also but by such Practices it is plain that they are not all Israel which are of Israel The true Church of England Men are Men of better Principles and more Honesty both Bishops and others who do comply conscientiously with the Innocent Ceremonies of our Church without Reviling Slandering Persecuting or Disturbing those who do as conscientiously Preach the same Gospel in Sincerity tho' in Conventicles without any Ceremonies as Christ and his Apostles did That the Churches of Christ are miserably rent and torn cannot be denied and that the breaches thereof hath proceeded from the Pride Ambition Laziness Uncharitableness and Contentions of the Clergy have been the chief cause thereof is as true The renting of Christ's seamless Coat began even in the days of the Apostles who rebuked them who said I am of Paul I am of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ as if Christ had been divided 1 Cor. 1.22 And therefore Paul besought them by the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ That they would all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions amongst them but that they be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment ver 10. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and division are ye not carnal and walk as men Who then is Paul and who is Apollo but Ministers by whom yee believed 1 Cor. 3.3 4 5. And it is well known that the wisest and most peaceable Men tho' of different Perswasions as protestants Papists and others are of Opinion that Constantine and other Pious Emperours endowing the Clergy with great Powers Priviledges Honours Offices Dignities and Preferments hath been the occasion of the Pride Luxury Tyranny Uncharitableness and Laziness of the Clergy and consequently the bane and destruction of true Holiness Purity and Simplicity that ought to be in the Clergy they being as Baits Snares Allurements and Temptations to seek and hunt after them and so to neglect to seek the Kingdom of God in the first place as they ought to do I may also say with many other wise and peaceable minded Men as a very great truth That as through pride cometh contention Prov. 13.10 so through the Pride and Haughtiness of the Clergy more havock hath been made of Love Charity Purity Sincerity and Simplicity of the Gospel than all the bloody Persecutions that have been in the World It is the Opinion of learned and judicious Mr. Jo. Hales in his Tract of Schism That were Liturgies and publick Forms of Service so framed as that they admitted not of particular and private Fancies but contained only such things as in which all Christians do agree on And the event shall be that the Publick Service and Honour of God shall no ways suffer Whereas to load our Publick Forms with the private Fancies upon which we differ is the most sovereign way to perpetuate Schism unto the Worlds end Prayer Confession Thanksgiving Reading and Exposition of Scriptures Administration of Sacraments in the plainest and simplest manner were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient Liturgy tho' nothing either of private or Church Pomp of Garments of prescribed Gestures of Imagery of Musick of matter concerning the
excellent Spirit that ought to be in true Gospel Preachers For in the end such Pulpiteers do but foam out their own Shame daring in that Sacred Place to do more than Michael the Arch-Angel who contending with the Devil himself durst not bring a railing accusation against him But I hope their Eyes are now inlightned by seeing that destructive Doctrine bafled by a Miriad of Priests and Pulpits which the former Government would not bear and yet the true Doctrine of Passive Obedience with its just Limits and Qualifications remains as true and as firm in the Church of England as ever These Priests are not alone in vilely Characterizing our Conventicles for if you consult our Sermons of late Years especially those Preached on certain Solemn Days as those on the 30th of January on the 9th of Sept. 1683 and the like you will find them generally be-spattering our Conventicles either in broad glances or plain terms as tho' it were the business of Christianity to revile and persecute Men for their Consciences differing from them in small things and those indeterminate by plain places of Scriptures Whether the Characters that these Men and those of the same quorum or the Character that I have given of them be the truest I appeal to God and the whole Nation however I have this for my Justification or at least for Extenuation viz. the several Addresses of several Parliaments to the King on their behalf and against their Persecutors And if I am in an Error it is an Error on the Right-hand to judge them Pious that seem so tho' in truth they were not so I am no discerner of Hearts God only knows them but Charity believeth all things hopeth all things and covereth a multitude of faults This good Opinion of mine of them is not without the Testimony of many of their grave sober pious peaceable learned and understanding Auditors averring the same and that they constantly pray as fervently and heartily for the King Church and State as any Conformist Church of England Priests And which is yet more demonstrable their Sermons and Works in Print manifest the same to all the World as the Works of Dr. Bates Dr. Owen Tho. Godwin R. Baxter R. Allen and a hundred more which declare to all the World their Sentiments their Learning and their Piety wherein they are as Orthodox as other true Church of England Men are tho' neither one nor the other are Infallible And must we after such Testimonies and Demonstration of their Abilities their Soundness of Doctrine their Labours and Endeavours for Holy Living and Conversation esteem them as Monsters of Priests revile them take up evil Reports against them and load them with the guilt of all the late horrid Rebellious Plots the Assosiation Fire at New Market the Rye and that of the late Duke of Monmouth without infallible Proof and Demonstration Sure sure this ought not to be What if some few of many hundreds have been so phanatick so mad to ingage in some or all of these Rebellions must all the rest be esteemed guilty therefore Sure this can be no Righteous Judgment Were all the Eleven Apostles Traitors because Judas was Happily if a fair computation could be made there would be found guilty of some or of all these Rebellions many more Atheistical Debauchees and ill-lived Persons than Conventiclers or Non-conformists Mr. J. T. himself for all his hard Speeches against them is not so uncharitable as to believe but that most of the Dissenters knew nothing of the Duke of Monmouth 's Design yet he is certain that if it had taken effect they would all have sided with the Conspirators against the Laws the Monarchy and the Church of England pag. 29. Though the Hearts of Men are deceitful above all things yet it seems this Church of England Priest knows them all I know the Opinion that the high Church of England Men have of the Non-conformists in general is that of Villanies the well-meaning Zealots it 's well known whom they mean thereby are the most dangerous So the Ecclesiastical Politician If we reflect on the severe Reprimands and Censures laid upon Sibthorp and Manwaring for their destructive Principles and Doctrines of Government and the Remonstrances of a Kingdom reprefented in a Parliament against those that discountenanced good and Pious Ministers of the Gospel and their Assembling one would think should for ever have deterred all future Ages from entertaining any such like Principles again and from discouraging and discountenancing Assemblies meeting only to serve God and to save their own Souls But I see Hogen-Mogen Church of England Men will be so still maugre all the Judgments Censures and Punishments that a whole Kingdom can inflict upon them If our Conventicles are such as are represented Factious Rebellious Schismatical why do not our Tory Priests assemble themselves and teach and practise better things But to be like Dogs in the Manger neither eat Hay nor let the Horses eat neither assemble themselves nor suffer others that would is no Character of a good Shepherd As it cannot be denied that God requires his Worship to be Publick and Celebrated in great Congregations in the beauty of Holiness as in Temples Altars Forms of Service Set times c. so it cannot be denied that God requires the inward and private Devotions both in Heart Closet and Houses and that all Assemblings of Christians for Mutual and Reciprecal help of Piety and Devotion wheresoever and by whomsoever Celebrated ought to be permitted without exception or stint It is a shame to publish it but it is a sad truth that the Pride and Haughtiness of the Clergy in all Ages and the Villanous Doctrines they teach concerning Kingly Powers and their own have abused and seduced and misguided Kings into all Misgovernments viz. That Kings have an Arbitrary Power from above to direct what Laws and to take what Tribute they please that they have Power to bind the Consciences of their Subjects to the Religion they think best that they are unaccountable to any on Earth and that all private Consciences must be subject to the publick Conscience without which they are no better than Statues and Images of Authority These and worse if worse may be are the frequent Documents of our high Church of England Mens Pulpits and Prints which are destructive to all Governments and human Societies So that upon the whole matter it is no matter what Religion or what Government God hath established but what Kings and Princes command These Tory Church of England Men have no consideration how easily uncontrolable Authority degenerates into Tyranny till the Poor have scarse a hole to hide their Heads in or a rag to cloath their naked Backs or a morsel of Bread to fill their hungry Bowels Masterless Power on Earth is apt to make even Kings to forget their King and Judge in Heaven as if Providence slept because Judgment is not speedily executed Consider it all yet that forget
become more sensless of God's Glory Wrath and Indignation and the eternal Welfare of the pretious Souls of God's own People than was Balaam's dumb Ass The fatal mischief of such base Flattery and of such Pulpit Laws and Doctrines as it was foreseen punished and declared to tend to the ruine of this or any other Nation by the Wisdom of our Sage Predecessors so we did see it was fairly fulfilling in our late Days and times Such was the Imprudence nay Impudence of the then Court Clergy favourites and sycophants in those Days that tho' Sibthorp and Mainwaring were by King and Parliament so severely doomed to be punished yet no sooner was the Parliament up but by the Interest of those fawning time-servers the said Mainwaring and Sibthorp were preferred and Archbishop Abbot frowned upon because he would not License such pulpit destructive Doctrines And it is such only of the Clergy and other lewd Priests that are in contempt and vile esteem with the Nation whilst others true Church of England Men indeed are as highly in their Esteem and Veneration Thus to discover Crimes of some Priests is not to Calumniate the Church of England but that she may be purged of such Vermin The Reverend Dean of Rippon in his Sermon on 1 Kings 8.66 is of like Mind and Principles who therein declares That be the Kings Heart inclinable to any Religion or none yet it leaves him no Rival none to contradict him for he is made our King by God's Law of which the Law of the Land is only declarative Kings must not be upbraided with their Promises which Promises are Donatives and it is reason the Donor should have the explaining of his own Mind that the King is major universis as well as singulis that the sole Legislative Power is lodged in the King and to him belongs the Interpretation of all Laws and Dispensing with them and that he may make a grant with a non obstante to them c. Pure Doctrine for a Reverend Dean to Preach and yet this pure Mungril Church of England Man preferred to be Bishop of Chester for these abominable Doctrines Whoever will seriously consider and compare those dismal Preachments and Prints destructive to all human Societies which our high Church of England Men pulpitted and printed heretofore and how highly they were disgusted by several Parliaments the greatest Wisdom of our Nation and dissatisfied therewith and how they stigmatized those very Doctrines and condemning the Authors of them to mulcts and punishments and yet when those Parliaments were up those very false Teachers were carressed with Pardons and Preferments whoever I say will compare those Doctrines with those Mr. Samuel Johnson printed and maintained even to the undergoing of Inquisition Torments and which the present Parliament and generality of the Nation now own justifie and practise with their Lives and Fortunes must confess that both the Reward and Punishment of the one and the other were mightily misplaced It is yet fresh in our own Memories when our Clergy were much more modest when but one Temporizing Sibthorp and another Court-Parasite Mainwaring durst Pulpit or Print such Doctrines under the Sacred Title of Apostolick Obedience Licens'd by the then Bishop of London and for which they received the just Censures of the King and the whole Kingdom in Parliament which in the truest sense is the Church or rather the Representative Governing part both of Church and State the Bishops and Priests being but Officers thereof which they do not love to hear of but now Confidence nay the Brow of Brass is the Temper and Complexion of very many Pulpits which Thunder every where with such Documents and Outcries as the High-ways to Preferments always having their Mouths half-cockt to let fly at all their gain-sayers not only in the Pulpits and Prints but also in all publick places and Meetings as Coffee-Houses Westminster-Hall Court of Request Lobbies in Parliament-time can witness whereby they have obtained a new name of Tory Church of England Men. They scorn to consider the black Characters they were then stigmatized and branded with by former Parliaments as serpens qui devorat serpentem fit Draco that they tended to the alteration and subversion of the whole Frame and Fabrick of the State and Common-wealth That they tended to the seducing of the Conscience of the King to increase his Royal displeasure against his Subjects to scandalize impeach and subvert the good Laws and Government of the Kingdom and Authority of Parliaments to avert his Majesty's Mind from calling of Parliaments to alienate his Royal Heart from his People to cause Jealousies Sedition and Divisions in the Kingdom c. Besides these Characters they held it a great presumption for a private Divine to debate the Right and Power of the King which is a matter of such a nature as to be handled onely in Parliament and that with moderation and therefore the said two Sermons called Religion and Allegiance were adjudged to be called in and burnt by the King's Proclamation the Author to make his submission and acknowledgment of his Crime to the imprisoned during the pleasure of the House to be fined 1000 l. suspended for three Years from the Exercise of the Ministery disabled to have any Ecclesiastical Dignity or Secular Office and for ever disabled to Preach at Court A better Example to imitate and follow than either Fire and Faggot or the Address of the Universities or the Pulpit Doctrines of the 9th of September 1683 wherein both King Nobles Prelates and People were interessed in that Judgment Were such Tenets of such ill consequence by the Judgment of the whole Nation in those Days and are they not the same now where 's the difference The violation offered to plain Texts of Scripture by perverting the true and natural sense and meaning of them by such of the Clergy a Generation of Men that under the umbrage of that Sacred Canopy of Religion as being appointed Teachers and Ministers of the Gospel indued with the Power of Ordination set up for themselves in an opposite and distinct Interest separated from the rest or Body of the Church whereby they erect regnum in regno against the Purity and Sincerity of Religion and Interest of Mankind and this they have been upon the catch to compass by little and little almost ever since the Apostles Days and that by sinister means hath been the occasion of all Misgovernments by ascribing Divine Power to Kings and that they are accountable to none but God for any male-regiment False Prophets not considering if Rulers hearken to Lyes and such are all false glossers on Texts of Scripture all his servants will be wicked Prov. 9.12 such-like of the Clergy are the Time-servers and Court-Parasites that draw odium and contempt upon that Sacred Profession that ought to be had in Reverence by all the Sons and Daughters of Men. I could wish that they would first pull out the Beams that are in their own
have usurped and monopolized it to themselves Histories are full and plain It is no less worthy of our observation That the Diocesses or the Provinces of the Pastors and Teachers whether Bishops or Presbyters of the several congregated Churches did not extend beyond one Church one Altar or one Parish i. e. such a Number of Christians as might all assemble and meet to Confer Hear and Communicate one with another for mutual Edification so that every Bishop or Presbyter might take Cognizance of every Man's Life and Conversation and of the Spiritual state of every individual Soul of such congregated Churches And One hundied and fifty Souls were thought by St. Chrysostom and others as many as one Pastor could well and more than he could without great labour discharge v. his Homil. in Ignat. Paulinus Bishop of Tyre in Constantine's time had but so many under his Episcopal charge as the Panegerist in Eusebius informs us as he could take a Personal notice of their Souls and accurately examine the inward state of every one acquainting himself throughly with the condition of all those Souls that were committed to him As Christ's Church and Kingdom excelleth and differeth from all the Kingdoms of the World so doth its Government because it was to be gathered and established in all other Kingdoms accursed Enemies thereunto therefore Heavenly Wisdom it self appointed and ordained such a Government for his Church as it might exercise in any Nation by its own Spiritual Laws without the help of human Mixtures Superstructions or Politicks and without interfering with their Government or with their Laws or prejudicing their Civil Rights What alterations or additions have been made to this Government in any Nation that Nation hath thereby as much as in them lies reproached that Wisdom which is from above and pure and out of the proud conceits of their own Wisdom and Politicks and out of their own covetous and ambitious Projects and out of the mean conceits of the Purity and Simplicity of the Gospel have scorned to subscribe and submit to Gods own Appointment not contenting themselves to be Servants and Ministers of the Church as Christ himself and as the Apostles were but will be Masters Lords Dukes Marquisses Earls Princes Judges Cardinals Pontiffs what not over their Flocks and over all the Kingdoms of the World whereby they demonstrated their own Wisdom and Politicks to be Earthly Sensual Divellish As if Christ in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge did not know what Government was fittest and best for his Church and Kingdom who chose to establish it not by high and mighty Powers Princes Potentates and Pontiffs but by mean and inconsiderate Persons Fishermen Tent-makers and the like to magnifie the Power of his Grace and thereby to confound the Wisdom of the Worldly Wise But so it shall not be among you but whoever shall be great among you shall be your minister And whoever shall be chiefest shall be servant of all For even the Son of Man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Mark 10.43 44 45. To this Government Christ inseparably and indispensably annexed this great Prerogative and Priviledge viz. Liberty of Preaching and Propagating his Gospel to all Nations when he said Go teach all nations c. and that beyond all contradiction of any Person or Power whatsoever King or Pontiff with a command that Kings should be their Nursing Fathers What were they but the Chief Priests Scribes and Elders that questioned Christ Prince of all the Kindoms of the earth Rev. 1.5 and to whom God had given the Heathen for his inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession Psal 2.8 when he Taught in the Temple and Preached the Gospel by what Authority he did those things and who it was that gave him that authority Luke 20.1 2. And did not Christ disdain to give them a satisfactory Answer as Persons medling with that they had nothing to do with all And are not those in our Days as sawcy and insolent as those proud Priests of old were who endeavour to muzzle the Mouths of those that should tread out their Corn and bring forth the food of Life unto the People and that for things only indifferent no ways Essential to Salvation And not only so but Persecuting them by Suspensions depriving them of their Liberty Maintenance and Benefit by Mulcts Imprisonment c. Plagues little inferior to those of the Hellish Inquisition a Sin as National as Drinking Drabbing Swearing or the like and requires as National Publick and Solemn Humiliation for it as for those other Crimes In the Days of Edward the VI. and Queen Elizabeth the Dissenters of those times insisted mainly That no Reformation of Church Discipline and Government could be perfect unless reduced to that state it was in in the Apostles Days This the Wisdom of those times thought neither possible nor certain nor absolutely convenient because what was used in those Times the Scripture fully declareth not so that making their Times the Rule and Canon of Church-Polity is to make a Rule which being not possible to be fully known is as impossible to be fully observed So Judicious Hooker However let us trace those Times as far as we can Without all peradventure and beyond all contradiction Christ knowing that his Messengers which he sent to gather a People to himself out of Jews and Gentiles Heathens Publicans and Sinners by perswasive means only were to build up his Church within the Bosoms of Kingdoms avowed and accursed Enemies to his Gospel he therefore gave them such Doctrines and such Commissions for Doctrine and Discipline as they might any where Publish and Exercise in a quiet and peaceable manner the Subjects of no Commonwealth or Kingdom being any where therein concerned in Goods or Persons by virtue of that Spiritual Regiment whereunto Christian Religion once embraced did make them liable The Documents Powers and Directions are recorded sparsim in the Gospel but more particularly in the 18th of Matth. viz. If thy Brother transgress against thee what then go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone If he hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother but if he will not hear thee what then then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established and if he shall neglect to hear them what then tell it to the Church i. e. to that whole congregated Church or Assembly whereof thou and he are Members what then if he neglect to hear them let him be to thee as an Heathen or Publican i. e. pursue him in the Courts of Civil Judicature as thou wouldst any other that is not a Christian i. e. as a Publican or Heathen or any other wrong doer not to own them as Brethren nor to keep company with them with such no not to eat with them as not being worthy the Name and Profession of Christians which
they had put on they not living to the adorning but to the shame of the Gospel This is the Summ of the Discipline and Government that Christ left to his Church for ought appears by any plain Scripture And what need of more or other For if the Ministers of the Everlasting Gospel have free liberty to Instruct break Bread exhibit the Sacraments and Pray the Civil Magistrate hath sufficient Power by God's own Ordinance to order all the rest And their Commission extends no farther viz. Go ye and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Matth. 28.19 20. Cura Animarum Salvation and Damnation of Souls being of Everlasting consequence and of the highest concern in the World to every individual is beyond all peradventure and contradiction the main Duty and Glory both of Priest and Prelate and to be apt to teach to be instant in season out of season to reprove rebuke and exhort with all long suffering and doctrine 2 Tim. 4.1 2. for hereunto most especially and if not onely they are called as was Aaron and if not called unto this Duty they are called unto none by any Patent or Commission from Heaven This was the Government the Apostles used and left no other and the Gospel prospered under it then and why it should not prosper under it still no reason can be asscribed however let us trace the steps thereof and see by what vile arts and means it became degenerated into meer worldly Forms set up for meer worldly Ends and Interests In the Days of our Saviour whilst on Earth there was a common Purse which Judas carried which was always filled and supplied with the free-will Offerings of pious devout Princes and of private Persons who plentifully contributed their Temporal Riches to the Churches which was first instituted kept and distributed for two Ends only viz. First For the Necessities of Christ and his Apostles Preachers of the Gospel Secondly For Alms for the Poor which was distributed as the Lord commanded by Judas who was a Thief and usurped to himself the said Goods common to the Apostolical Colledge and was so Covetous that he sold to the Jews the very Person of Christ When Christ was ascended into Heaven the Holy Apostles in the Church of Jerusalem kept on foot the same Holy institution and for the self-same Ends viz. for the Necessities of the Ministers of the Gospel and for Alms for the Poor the Faithful in those Days making all their Goods common sold their Possessions for the same Purse or Stock and Uses So that the Community of the Church was not distinct from the particular of each faithful Man Yet this Custom of having all things in common went not out of Jerusalem And in other Churches planted also by the Holy Apostles this Custom was not observed neither did it last long in Jerusalem Whereupon 26 Years after Christ it is read That the publick was distinct from the private every one knowing his own but the Money being common in that Church as in others founded in Oblations which placed in common served onely for the Ministers and for the Poor The first Day of the Week which for that cause was called the Lord's-Day the Faithful met together and each one offered that which he had set apart of the foregoing Week for the Necessities of the common which was administred and distributed by the Apostles themselves for a short time after the Ascension whence arose murmurings and discontents and many dissatisfactions some thinking they were neglected and had too little and that others had too much which gave great trouble and distractions to the Apostles which they considering and finding that they could not attend this perfectly together with Preaching the Word of God they resolved to stick close to the Ministery of Preaching and Teaching and Praying continually and therefore appointed for this Office of having care of Temporal things another sort of Ministers Deacons quite disserent from that we see done in these Days wherein the Pope and Chief Prelates of the Church attend the Government of Temporal things and the Office of Preaching and Teaching and the Doctrine of the Gospel neglected and left unto Friars or Brethren and inferior Priests in the Church Wherefore they directed the Brethren to look out among themselves from the body of the Faithful Seven Men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom whom they appointed for that Ministery that they might give themselves continually to Prayer and to the Ministery of the Word And wheresoever they founded a Church they also appointed Deacons in the same manner and to the same Ministery As also they ordained Bishops and Priests and other Ecclesiastical Ministers Fasting and Praying preceeding And the common Election of the Faithful following after observing inviolably this order never deputing any Man to any Ecclesiastical Charge who was not first Elected by the Universality of the Church which is of all the Faithful together This Custom was observed not only during the life-times of the Apostles but even about two hundred Years maintaining the Ecclesiastical Ministers and the Poor also with the publick Stock raised by such Oblations And the fervent Zeal and Charity of those Times was so great that the Oblations amounted to very great Summs In the Church of Rome that rich City Marcion about the Year 170 gave a free-will Offering at one time of Five thousand Crowns of Gold in the Church of Rome who afterward holding Erroneous Opinions in matters of Faith he was expelled from the Congregation and all his Money restored to him This rich City grew so rich by those Oblations that after Two hundred and twenty Years the Roman Emperours coveted them Whereupon Decius the Prince arrested St. Lawrence a Roman Deacon to take the Ecclesiastical Treasures from him but he being aware thereof distributed them all suddenly and so disappointed the Tyrant The Church thus abounding in Riches the Clergy began then to degenerate and to live at ease not being content with the daily Food of the Church but would have their separate shares every Day or Month or longer and live where they pleased which tho' it declined from the Primitive Perfection was yet winked at by the Fathers but it rested not here for the Bishops began to fail the Poor of their due and kept more for themselves and so growing Rich with the Goods of the Church dealt also in Usury to increase in Riches and withall leaving off the Care of Teaching the Doctrines of Christ and busied themselves in getting Pelf of which St. Cyprian complains in his time Tho' the Church possessed so much Wealth yet it had no settled or stable Goods at the first Yet in France and in Italy some left or gave stable Goods to Churches which in the Year 302 were all confiscated by Dioclesian and Maniminian tho' in France
Psalm hath a Dodrine ver 26. If any Man speak ver 27. let the Prophets speak two or three and let the other judge ver 29. If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by let the first bold his peace ver 30. for ye may all prophesie one by one that all may learn and all be comforted v. 31. and the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets v. 32. let the women keep silence ver 31. wherefore bretheren covet to prophesie ver 39. Now if the words or terms of the whole Church all every one any Man the other another Bretheren be words and terms of universality and differencing then certainly the Words Prophets and Prophecying in this Chapter are most especially applicable to the Bretheren to the Auditors In this Chapter also are Instructions given that Women in these Conventicles do hold their peace ver 31. let all prophesie one by one that all may learn and be comforted and all things be done decently and in order all which are Commandments of the Lord ver 37. If these be no Divine Oracles and Precepts to all the Faithful to congregate for the ends and purposes aforesaid then I understand neither plain Scripture nor plain English But if any Men will understand God otherwise than he will be understood and distinguish Scriptures and model them to their own humour and accept or reject his truth as will best consist with their own resolutions and by oblique Arts think to trick us out of our just Rights I leave them to the just Judgment of God who will judge Righteously The Primitive and puest Churches were so gathered and so propagated Moreover the same Apostle re-inforceth the same Doctrine in his Epistle to the Hebrews ch 10. ver 23 24 25. to hold fast the profession of Faith without wavering to consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works not forsaking the assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is Heb. 10.23 24 25. who fearing the Breath of Fools and that thereby their designs of Honours and Preferments and other wretched Ends would be defeated dare not assemble to husband the precious moments of thier lives to the advantage of their Master what is this else but to bespatter and to have scornful and mean conceits of the humility of the ways of Christ and of the simplicity of his Gospel Do they not rather betray much luke-warmness and indifferency and walk in a Neutrality and Adiaphorism between God and Baal nay much hellishness and devillish Antipathy to Christ and his strictest service For in truth it is unbeseeming nor Priest nor Prelate but a duty incumbent upon them to counenance and encourage Conventicles or Assemblies guilty of nothing maugre all the false Aspersions and Calumnies laid upon them by Men carried away with the stream of this wicked World and the common prejudices and presumptions of foolish Men but of great Zeal to worship God and save their own Souls by besieging and besetting the Throne of heaven with more ardent and retired Prayers and Conferences Why do they thus mock God as one mocketh another Job 13.9 Certainly it would better become them to be zealous son Piety and good Lives because vicious Habits are worse than false Opinions And it is not only a duty incumbent on Prelate Priest and People but their glory also to countenance every thing that is done to gain Souls to Christ whether in pretence or in truth Phil. 1.15 16 17 18. and nothing is unseemly but vice Christians indeed ought to abstain from those things which are repugnant to Christian Profession which are Sins but whatsoever may be done without sin is lawful for every man to do and therefore may assemble Besides nothing ought to be condemned or spoken ill of that is capable of a good construction of which nature are our Conventicles and yet are reviled and evil spoken of by some who have the poyson of Asps under their Lips and whose Throats are as open Sepulchers because it is not only humanity but a Gospel Principle to make the most favourable and charitable construction of all Actions capable of a good and bad interpretation for charity thinketh no evil and we are commanded above all things to have fervent Charity for that shall cover a multitude of sins 1 Pet. 4.8 and envieth not is kind doth not behave it self unseemly as they do that decry Conventicles thereby giving great jealousie that in good earnest they esteem that Ordinance foolishness of Preaching desperately contemning the Purity and Simplicity of the Gospel thinketh no evil believeth all things hopeth all things 1 Cor. 13. and I fear that they that have not this Charity towards such Conventicles their Charity is but as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal and you know that Revilers are in the black Catalogue of the damned Crew mentioned 1 Cor. 6.9 10. and by so judging they prescribe for themselves and prejudge themselves Judge not that ye be not judged for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged Why beholdest thou the moat that 's in thy Brether's eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye Matth. 7.1 2 3. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth Yea he shall be holden up for God is able to make him stand Rom. 14.4 and God alone is Judge of erring Persons Besides I know no Power on Earth that hath lawful Authority to forbid any Man to Preach the Gospel or that they that are called to Preach are obliged to ask leave of any other to Preach the Gospel either publickly or privately Christ and his Apostles notwithstanding all Threatnings and Imprisonments Prohibitings Scourgings what not yet preached the Gospel o th openly in their Synagogues and in the Temple and also privately by stealth even at midnight breaking Bread from House to House till they lost their lives for so doing which they would not have done had it been unlawful so to have done For my part I am of Opinion That our love to the Bretheren is the best and most manifest evidence of our love to God and the best Rule whereby to measure our love to him and I hope I shall never eminently see the Image of Christ in any Man Conventicler or not Conventicler but shall love him more dearly for it and abhor my self for being so much unlike him Why dost thou judge thy Brother or why dost thou set at naught by Brother for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ Rom. 14.10 And God will measure us by his own Line and by his own Plummet Deus bone unto what then doth all this Gall of Asps these I breats as wide as open Sepulchers decrying Conventicles and persecuting of them tend out of Zeal to the more strict and pure ways of serving God not possible it rather gives more occasions of greater Fears and Jealousies of more rancourous constitution of Hearts against
Prophets that divine for money and pimp for domination Mich. 3.11 and Demas-like forsake the fellowship of Saints and embrace this present World So that unless the Apostles return from Heaven or that Christ himself come again in Person and lasn them as he did the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple I see small hopes of Establishing the Government of the Church on a right Basis If they would be active in good earnest to divest themselves of all Temporal Domination and Jurisdiction and content to be reduced to the life and practise of the Apostles as they are to persecute their fellow Members for Conventicling we might be happy Yet I must do the right Reverend Author of Naked Truth that right That if the Ecclesiasticks were all of his mind and first seek the Kingdom of God it would easily be done and I do with him humbly conceive That the Bishops with the rest of the Clergy are bound in Conscience to implore the Assistance of both Houses of Parliament to Petition his Majesty for the Redress of the Abuses by Pious Laws settling the Church Government in the Primitive Purity and Authority which most evidently was very great and as greatly reverenced Bishops and Priests being the Persons to whom Christ and his Apostles committed the Souls of Men bought with his most precious Blood Therefore I think they do such Clergy-men not Priesthood not Episcopacy not true Church of England Men no wrong who esteem them as they manage their matters the very worst Interest that Protestant Kings and Kingdoms have but that of the Papists These Animosities and Differences have been ever since the beginning of the Reformation between the Conforming and Non-conforming Clergy and I may truly prophesie ever will be so long as Conscience shall be on the Earth and as long as Ministers will not be Servants but Lords over Gods heritage and will not condescend to let things made by God Almighty indifferent so to be and remain the Reasons are pregnant for that Conscience will be Conscience while the World stands and therefore there ever will be Scrupulonties and Obligations upon Conscience which are greater than all other Obligations in the World And therefore King James the First would say and that truly That the Puritans were never to be obliged and for that Reason Whereas if things indifferent might so remain and the Conventiclers permitted to preach in publick to take away all Fears Jealousies and Suspicion we should be all at quiet for then there would not be left so much as the pretence of Religion to occasion Dislentions or Quarrels Besides it is the time-serving Clergy only the Drones that vilifies and abaseth that caluminates and disturbs the Dissenters and not the Dissenters them EXtremities used against them at their Instigation Silencing Imprisoning Excommunicating making use of Laws against them that in their primary 35 Eliz. simple and sincere Institution were intended and enacted against Papists only and they not proceeded against so violently according to those very Laws in full force against them as against the Non conformists who have been Indicted under the Notion of Popish Recusants and Penalties levied upon them and the Papists either totally connived at or remissly prosecuted many Crimes through ungrounded prejudices laid to their charge as disturbing of the Government which they abhor and teach not of which they are no otherways guilty than by that Logick that the Fox his Earon his Head were Horns meer Surmizes Calumnies and Libels and nothing proved but that contrary to a human Law they following the Command and Example of Christ and his Apostles meet and assemble together to keep a more intimate near and dear Communion with their and our God and with one another and to make Peace and Reconciliation with God whilst they are yet in the way yet in the possibility of Salvation whcih Law in it self is null and void because it contradicts the Law of God which Commands all Men every where to call on the Name of the Lord Jesus and all Priests to teach all Nations Baptizing c. and to preach in every Church in season out of season c. to reprove exhort rebuke with all long-suffering and doctrine 2 Tim. Is not this with the Priests of old and the Captain of the Temple to be grieved at the heart that they teach the People and therefore laid hands on them and put them in hold and like Elymas the sorcerer being full of all subtlety and all mischief children of the Devil enomies of all righteousness never ceasing to pervert the right ways of the Lord Act. 4.2 and 13.10 But lying lips shall be put to silence which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous Psalm 31.18 It was St. Paul's Glory that Christ was preached any way though through strife or vain glory and I fear it is the glory of the more violent and haughty Tory Church of England Party as the road to Preferment to decry Conventicling and Preaching contrary to such a Law and to stop the Mouths of them that would Preach whereby they intitle themselves to the Character of the Shepherds described and deciphered Isai 56.10 11. Consider that in Preaching contrary to such a Law they do no more than what Christ and his Apostles did in their Days The Rulers of the Jews offended with Peter 's Sermon imprisoned him and John and having strictly examined them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the Name of Jesus Did they therefore forbear Preaching or were they obedient to such Commands of the Rulers I tell you nay but answered and said unto them Whether it be right in the sight of God to bearken unto you more than unto God judge ye and continued speaking the Wrod of God with great boldness Acts 4. The like did the rest of the Apostles even from house to house though accused of turning the World up-side down and of doing contrary to the decrees of Caesar yet preaching the Word of God boldly Act. 17.26 Either the Author to the Hebrews Preacht false Doctrine when he exhorteth us to consider one another to provoke unto Love and to good Works not forsaking the assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is And so did St. Paul when he wrote his Chap. 14. to the Corinthians wherein he adviseth all to desire Spiritual gifts but rather that they may prophesie that they may speak unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort when the Church is come together in one place with particular Directions how all should behave themselves in such Assemblies that all may profit with a general Rule that all things be done decently and in order Either I say these Apostles taught false Doctrines in so Teaching or else they that preach and prate against such Assembling as the manner of some is are false teachers I know no medium take it as you please Can it it be imagined that if St. Paul who rejoyced
that Christ was preached in season and out of season though out of envy and strife though not sincerely though but in pretence and not in truth were living now and here would condemn our Conventicles or would not rather be in the midst of them himself I appeal to God and your own Consciences if you your selves ought not to continue stedfast in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread from House to House and Prayers If Conventicles in our Days do endeavour to come as near as they can to continue stedfast in the Doctrine and Fellowship of the Apostles why should they be interrupted Were not Spiritual Men mad doting upon mediocrities of Grace they would never burlesque the purity and simplicity of the Gospel nor the most strict ways of Piety and by ungrounded prejudices mis-judge them as Shagreen to good Government According to my Divinity Preaching in season out of season though not sincerely though but in pretence though not in truth Crimes of which I hope our Conventicles are no ways guilty and to become all things to all men that by all means they may save some is but to do the Will of their Master but more especially when their assembling and associating in such Conventicles is only to redeem and improve precious time by endeavouring to make all moments of their life comfortable and beneficial to themselves and others sparing sufficient time to humble themselves and to keep a constant communion with their and our God Pope Pius the Fourth could say That he would humble himself to Heresie in regard what ever was done to gain Souls to Christ did become that See And shall Protestants Clergy and not Clergy be like the Saduces and be grieved at heart that the People be taught the right ways of the Lord Absit I hope the Church of England tho' there have been and still are scab'd Sheep among them is not yet so corrupted as to have that laid to her charge which Christ told the Scribes and Pharisees That in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines Mens Commandments and of which St. Austin complained in the Church wherein he lived which was so corrupted that the Commandments of God are laid aside teaching for Doctrines Mens Commandments and those exacted with such Severity nay with Tyranny that they were more severely censured who transgressed them than those who transgressed the Laws of God It is certainly so in Rome I will I could say it had never been so in England It is absurd to cry The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord boasting of the Priviledges that the Gospel doth afford us and at the same time to prevaricate with God and the Redeemed of his own Blood to give them stones instead of bread and serpents instead of fish by such their destructive Doctrines and punish more for Non-conforming than for not Preaching and as by Excommunication to deny and abridge the excommunicate the participation of Sermons Sacraments Sabbaths c. all outward means of Grace and Repentance Did St. Paul and the Corinthians forbid him whom they had delivered to Satan to come to their Assemblies or partake of the Sacraments Did Christ ever forbid Publicans and Sinners to come unto him Did he not eat the Passover with Judas the greatest of Sinners When the Pharisees objected his eating and drinking with Sinners as a crime did not he tell him That they that are whole need not a Physician but they that are sick Matth. 9.11 12. Did he not converse daily with them Did he not cast out unclean Spirits nay Devils out of them And yet our excommunicates tho' but for Niff-Naffs must not approach the Temple of the Lord nor assemble in the Holy Congregations This hath been the practise of some Centuries of Years both of the Popish and Protestant Churches when in truth there 's no such thing in Holy Writ as it hath been and still is used in both Churches And that Excommunication that is mentioned in Scripture if any at all is in the body of the Church and not in the Officers thereof and which the Laity have as much Authority to exercise against the Clergy as the Clergy against the Laity it cannot be denied Is it recorded in any Scripture Old or New that the Church doors were to be shut against the vilest Sinners or Sacraments or Communion denied unto them and yet the use of Excommunication hath been and still is such in both Churches I should account it a marvellous happiness if any thing that I have written might so far prevail with our Clergy as seriously to take into their consideration their interessing and intermedling with Civil Affairs and Imployments and also Excommunication which bring so much odium and contempt upon them and lay to Heart how many hundreds of Years the Church hath been imposed upon and abused by them The abuse of which by the Roman Pontiffs hath been abominable even against Emperors Kings Princes and States that all Histories swell therewith and stinks in the Nostrils of God and Man But not so much abused by any Protestant Churches By Excommunication as now used they have done as much as in them lay to frustrate the whole design of the Gospel by debaring the Excommunicates the use and enjoyment of the outward means of Grace and Repentance What strange kind of Sacriledge is this that when Christ hath appointed Sabbaths Sermons Sacraments c. for the conversion of Sinners to him and for establishing and confirming them when converted our Priests out of self-Ends and Interests preach up another Doctrine viz. Excommunication which debars the benefit of them all and so by a new Gospel of their own do as much as in them lieth send People to the Devil instead of allowing them the means of Salvation How contrary how unlike were the Gospel-censures of old to this now in vogue they were for Edification not for Destruction as this knack or spell of Excommunication is Besides the Spiritual prejudices to the Salvation of Souls by Priests-craft it is extended also unto Temporals as that the Excommunicate cannot sue at Law for any Debts Land or for redress of injuries done unto him nor at his Death dispose of his Goods or Estate If this be Gospel I understand not Gospel-truths It 's a shame that Religion should be thus made use of and used so dirtily as to make it serve turns and Godliness to wait upon Gain Pride and Domination of Priests It would be a marvellous happiness to these Nations if the Church of England Men would yet be so wise and considerate in these evil and confounding times as to fettle among themselves the distracting Doubts of taking our New Oaths of Passive Obedience of Non-resistance of Allegiance of Praying for our KING For whilst they are of such different Opinions among themselves what would they have us sid Mortals the Laicks to do A separation if not worse must ensue and that of the highest nature and