thought of unless they may first be publickly declared innocent and then you know as well as I who are thereby declared guilty Here the conference begun and here it ended The Presbyterians themselves have printed an account of all proceedings of the Commissioners of both perswasions And there you may see that one of the first things proposed to them was that if they had any thing to object against the Liturgy as any way sinful and unlawful for us to joyn with it is but reason that this be first proved evidently before any thing be alter'd it isno argument to say that multitudes of sober pious persons scruple the use of it unless it be made to appear by evident reasons that the Liturgy gave the just grounds to make such scruples For if the bare pretence of scruples be sufficient to exempt us from obedience all law and order is gone To this what do they reply but that possibly it might be unlawful for them to impose it though not for others to joyn with them in its use when it was imposed Though for the proof of this they thought good to refer it as they still do all their disputes when they are baffled to the day of Judgment till which time they resolve to continue peevish and quarrelsome But if they had undertaken to prove it yet still it was but possible and that not upon the exceptions of wise men but the scruples of weak brethren to which it was replyed on the contrary we judge that if the Liturgy should be alter'd as is required not only a multitude but the generality of the soberest and most loyal Children of the Church of England would justly be offended since such an alteration would be a virtual confession that this Liturgy were an intolerable burden to tender Consciences a direct cause of Schism a superstitious usage which would at once both justifie all those which have so obstinately separated from it as the only pious tender Conscienced men and condemn all those that have adhered to that in Conscience of their Duty and Loyalty with their loss or hazard of Estates Lives and Fortunes as men superstitious schismatical and void of Religion and Conscience But for all this they boldly give in their exceptions against every part of the Liturgy not upon any pretence of Conscience but because it was not conformable enough to their own Directory and for that reason must the book of Common-Prayer be wholly laid aside and instead of it a new form of their own compiling imposed These were their least demands and they were very modest ones And no doubt but upon a little moderation and temper of things i. e. upon the least abatement to bring them off with Conscience though there was no such thing as Conscience pretended in the case and which insinuates into all men some little Reputation they would never have stuck out That is to say do but give them their wills to all intents and purposes and upon those terms it is possible they may condescend to an accommodation But what did these implacable Divines of the Church of England do to defeat this design of establishing a new Heaven and a new Earth Why to shew that they were men like others even cunning men revengful men beside their drilling on and trinkling out the foolish Act of Uniformity they made several unnecessary Additions only because they knew they would be more ingrateful and stigmatical to the Non-conformists v. g. in the Litany to false Doctrine and Heresie they added Schism though it were to spoil the Musick and Cadence of the Period This Bran is never to be refined and this obstinacy of the Clergy ever will be as it ever has been the greatest Obstacle of the Clemency Prudence and good Intentions of Princes and the establishment of their affairs When all things and all persons were so towardly prepared toward an accommodation if they would but once have consented only to abolish the establish'd Liturgy and set up a Geneva Directory and what had all that been had not they always been for the most bruitish and precipitate Counsels but instead of yielding to so reasonable a demand they like cunning and revengeful men foist in a new Prayer against Schism because they knew it would be stigmatical to the Non-conformists Though you knew the reflection lights purely upon the Church of England because as you have admirably demonstrated out of Mr. Hales Schism rhimes to Ism. But let them look to that your grievance is that they have spoiled the Musick and Cadence of the Period If they have far be it from me to patronize such Crimes I must confess I have no very good Ear but yet as far as I am able to discern the Period runs off as roundly as ever But if Schism do offend your ears yet however that is no offence to your Conscience though it seems Rebellion another word you might as well have excepted against is offensive to neither And now in this whole Affair compare the Precipitate Counsels of the Church of England with the yielding Temper of the Presbyterians and then judge you what Party it was that obstructed the Kings design of Accommodation He issues out his Commission to reform the Liturgy if there were any need now say the Presbyterians nothing will ever do it but our our old thorough way of Reformation utterly to abolish and lay it aside for ever that was their easie Method and the result of all their moderate Counsels No say the Bishops unless you will find something sinful and unlawful in the Liturgy we are well enough already and need nothing more than to join heartily in our Prayers to Almighty God against Schism and Rebellion And what could be more cruelly and revengefully done than to injoyn Presbyterians but to pray against Schism and Rebellion and rather than baâ—e them that though it were to save their Reputation spoil the Musick of a Period They will never leave these precipitate bruitish and sanguinary Counsels Neither the civil War nor the King's Return nor the softness of the Universities nor the gentleness of Christianity can make them wise or good-natured And though they have had so much experience how excessively the Non-conformists are to be obliged by Condescensions and how easily the last King won their hearts by yielding to their demands in so much that from the year 40. to 48. they would sooner have been knock'd on the head than have lift up an ill thought against him and had he not fatally ruined himself whether they would or no they had made him the most glorious King that ever wielded the English Sceptre What ungrateful Creatures then are these Church-canibals when the Non-conformists have all along done his Majesty such signal services yet now after such an happy Restauration happy I say because it did it self without their Officiousness they should not suffer him to comply with their Infirmities Nay they are grown so unreasonable that they
and your Clients the Nonconformists tye your selves by confederacy not to submit to her necessary injunctions for if the things she requires and imposes in order to the due and decent performance of Gods Worship are not necessary of themselves as you plead yet either these or some other as unnecessary as these are And then good Noble Marquess you might have put up your trumpery too and spared that grateful Penance you have undergone in transcribing so many pages for your own proper use out of that Authour For whatever he has suggested after this you may assure your self the Church of England neither is nor will be concern'd I am not ignorant that he has dropt some loose passages in that Treatise for which himself was then censured and the Book is still though the Authour be pardoned because as he did not first publish it so he afterwards recanted it At least it is too well known that this learned man was in his younger years too much tainted with the Socinian Tenets perchance for their novelty and singularity and so might vent some expressions derogatory to the establisht discipline of the Church in which he lived conformable to the mind and doctrine of Socinus Who you know had an ambition to set up for as great a Patriarch as Calvin and therefore labour'd as Calvin did to erect a New Church of his own and distinct from all other Communions only that it might bear his own Name In pursuance of this design he was forced to contrive such Conditions of Church-membership as flatly condemn'd the Constitution of all the establish'd Churches in the world and consequently warranted his separation from them Of this if you are not satisfied you may see enough in his own Epistles to Radecius upon this Argument where you may too if you have any mind to it trace M r Hales his Books of Schism and undergo another as grateful a Penance in transcribing and construing as much more to your own i. e. no purpose The next time you nose the Church of England with M r Hales let the Disquisitio Brevis be your Book I will add no further censure of him he was a good man and therefore if he had any defects I shall choose to cover them with that additional Civility that you say consecrates the ashes of the deceased I see you are a friend to the consecration of Reliques though not of Chappels for you have made bold to trample upon the Learned and Venerable Bishop Andrews his ashes for leaving behind him a form of Consecration of a Church or Chappel and of the place of Christian Burial i. e. for being a little concern'd that Posterity should know some difference between St. Pauls and a Stable However I shall not treat M r Hales for your sake so as you have Bishop Bramhal for mine whom because as you enviously think I have over-praised though you profess your self utterly unacquainted either with his Person or his Writings you will not allow the truth of any one period of all the Commendations I have given him but represent him as a crackt-brain'd fellow that was stroke with a notion and crazed on one side of his head and so busied himself and troubled the world as other mad men are wont to do with extravagant and impracticable projects or in digging through the separating Istmos of Peloponesus and making a Communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Nay you are not satisfied with making the Bishop alone an undertaking Coxcomb unless you may throw in Grotius and all the wisest and learnedest heads of Christendom into the same basket they only talkt like conceited fellows that went bigg forty years with impossibilities And this is as modestly chatter'd as can reasonably be expected from such an Urchin as you that are so sufficiently unqualified to give a competent judgement of the best and most probable terms of Reconciliation that you are as yet to learn the differences of the several dissenting Parties among themselves Go to your Systems and your Syntagms your sucking-bottles of Orthodoxy before you presume so lavishly to spend your Censures against the most pregnant wits and best improved Scholars in the Christian world But to all wise and discreet men the accommodation is feasible enough when the truly learned and sober of all interests are so inclinable to it especially when the best part of the Church of Rome it self are as desirous to abolish their corruptions out of their own Church as we are to keep them out of ours The two hindrances are the pride of the Jesuites on their side and the sierceness of the Calvinists on ours so that neither of them will part with a pin though it have neither head nor point for the peace prosperity of the Church but the former are resolved one and all to adhere unalterably to their old Innovations and the latter to their new ones And here snap me not up too nimbly for it is no Bull to stile the Innovations of the Church of Rome old so they are when compared to the Calvinian Novelties But shutting out these two fiery waspish Sects for eternal wranglers it is no such difficult thing for all sober men to agree upon a form of primitive simplicity or if it be I am sure it is not incumbred with so many difficulties as was the attempt of the Reformation and yet so zealous a Protestant as your self would not I suppose have discouraged those men that arose to that great work from the consideration of those many and great inconveniences that might probably ensue upon it However though they had been favour'd neither with Power nor Opportunity to effect it yet it had been worthy the greatness of their minds to recommend so brave and pious a work to the Princes of Christendom And so it was of Bishop Bramhal and H. Grotius that prodigiously-erastio-arminio-socinopontificio-politique Head-piece as a certain long-winded Presbyterian calls him to inform the world that the distance between Party and Party was not so wide and irreconcileable as some hot and eager Bigots would represent it and their endeavours have been kindly enough accepted by the best and most judicious men of all Communions But here I am snapt for how cleverly do I contradict my self when I say that the Bishop was not so vain nor so presuming as to hope to see his design of Catholique agreement effected in his dayes and yet but two pages before I had told you that he finisht all the glorious designs he undertook here no doubt I am trapt in a palpable contradiction and yet the escape is as easie as the pitfall for the Bishop only undertook to propound the way of a Catholique agreement not to effect it so that though he were not so vain as to hope to see it effected in his dayes yet for all that he might finish all the glorious designs he undertook seeing he only undertook the proposition not the execution of
endowed the Church and to accept of no other Interest or Reputation but what they gain by abstracting themselves from the world by humility and strictness of Doctrine and Conversation things being best preserved by the same means they were at first attain'd Yes yes the Authority of the Priesthood consists purely in the peoples Opinion of their Vertue and Piety and their Revenues in the Alms and voluntary Oblations of Christian People and not in endowments of Lands and Lordships nor grants of Secular Powers and Jurisdictions that is to say that because the Primitive Christians were perpetually exposed to Persecutions and Martyrdoms therefore bring forth your Rods and Axes and Pillories and Whipping-posts and Strappado's and Cheilostrophia and Rhinolabides and boil them roast them crucifie them hang them for things are best preserved by the same means they were at first attain'd But then good Mr. Trinkle the calamity of those times was the common fate of all Christian People Clergy and Laity were equally involved in the same miseries and yet I hope no Lay-man is so weak as to suppose that when Christianity has got the upper-hand and the favour and protection of the Government that he lyes under any obligation to quit those comforts and possessions of life that he may honestly and lawfully enjoy because it was the hard and unhappy fate of the Primitive Christians to suffer the loss of all for the sake of their Religion and why then should the Clergy be tyed more than they to an impertinent and unprofitable self-denyal or if it be their duty to be poor and miserable I am sure it is equally the duty of all And therefore in all States as Christianity prevail'd Churches were endowed with Lands and Revenues and Churchmen priviledged with exemptions and immunities and when it was setled as the Religion of the State the Clergy were every where admitted to a share of the Government as they are in all other Religions of the World And indeed who can more safely be trusted with the welfare of mankind than such persons whose very profession in prudence lays upon them peculiar obligations to justice and sobriety not but that they are liable though not so much to the same miscarriages with other Mortals but yet if they have better means to preserve them from unjust practices they are less likely to fall into them for the world is to be govern'd in humane wayes and though the Divine Providence may in some rare and extraordinary junctures over-bear the wisdom of men yet in its ordinary conduct of things it makes use of the most probable means and gives a blessing proportionable to the natural effects of things themselves So that it is a pretence only fit for such as are void of all other pretence to say that though Clergy-men are the best qualified of all men in the world for the managery of publique affairs yet God will never bless their endeavours how good or pious soever because he never intended them for that employment But such is the unhappy fate of the Clergy that they must be subjected to the lash of every proud and wanton pedant and if there be any man in any Age more remarkably ill-natured he is sure to be venting his malice and choler upon the Sacred Office though in ours every thing can be laying heavy and unreasonable burdens upon the backs of the Clergy and as rare a thing as it was in the time of yore in our dayes every Animal has confidence enough to bray forth his reproofs of the Prophets madness And nothing more familiar than for such men as have a mind to exempt themselves from the great and indispensable obligations of Religion to be alwayes prescribling idle and unnecessary severities to Church-men and though they indulge themselves in the most licentious courses yet they will by no means allow them the common and ordinary comforts of life It is a crime in a Clergy-man to be happy nay to be a man And if he will but be unkind and uncivil to himself they will love him for that though for nothing else This is very hard dealing and one would think very strange and yet there are two very obvious reasons of it beside the general principle of ill-nature 1. There are some men that dare not bid open defiance to all Religion and yet have no mind to be brought under the obligations of real vertue and goodness and therefore in excuse of their own neglect are willing to stretch the Precepts and Duties of the Gospel to an impracticable severity and thereby they make Apology to themselves for their own negligence in that it is not to be expected from men of business and that live in the world and in the middest of temptations that they should attend so constantly to that height of rigour and austerity that as they will have it the Laws of Religion require No this concerns Parsons and Church-men and such whose Trade it is to profess and pretend to a greater strictness than their neighbours But for them it is enough to be solemn and serious at certain seasons of devotion and to expiate all the wickedness of their lives by doing penance now and then in some childish and unprofitable instances of mortification People will endure any thing in Religion rather than be truly vertuous And this is the great disadvantage of the Church of England as to interest that it teaches men the plain and practicable precepts of the Gospel such as concern their lives and conversations and does not allow any tricks of eluding or baulking their duty it does not feed them with push-pin Orthodoxy and Scholastick Nothings about Faith and Justification and procatâ—rtick causes nor commute Penances and Prayers for the habitual practice of Vertue and Holiness but if men will mortifie their own vices and passions joyn the love of God with the love of their neighbour and endeavour after an entire conformity to the Laws of their Religion well and good she will administer comfort to an uniform and universal obedience But these though they are very plain are grievous hard sayings they grate upon mens pleasures and profits and pluck out right eyes and cut off right hands for there is scarce any man but has his peculiar and darling vice for which so it may be indulged men are content to make any satisfaction And when I discoursed of the Return of Popery I might have insisted upon this as one of the greatest grounds of danger that men will not endure the plain dealing of the Church of England but they must have a Religion that will be more compliant with their humours and reconcile some vices with the hopes of Eternal Life And this is the main subtilty of the Church of Rome she has found out wayes at the same time to ease the Consciences of wicked men and to advance her own wealth and grandeur though that which is most of all taking is that their Priests whatever burthen they lay upon
Text and then arm'd them with Spite and Zeal and that you know is an over-match for wisdome and courage And if the Pulpit were their Poast as you say it is they in the strength of modern Orthodoxy immoral Grace and Capon grease made it good against all Enemies whatsoever These were the Trumpeters to the War the next are the Leaders and they were first ignorant and half-witted men that were blown up with a great conceit of their own sufficiency in Politiques that had made Remarques upon Aristotle and Tacitus that could tell stories of the Grecian and Roman Common-wealths and begin a Speech with Sparta and Lycurgus and talk an hour together of the power of the Tribunes and the priviledges of the People of Rome and demonstrate out of History that when Augustus taxed the whole World he did it not by vertue of his own Imperial Prerogative but that it was granted to him by Vote and Authority of the Senate that he being a wise Prince avoided all appearances of Absolute Sovereignty that he submitted the management of his Power to the censure of so discreet a Consistory and sometimes labour'd to resign all his Authority and lay Himself and his Diadem at their feet and at last was not by all their importunity to be entreated to accept of the Empire but with a proviso of resigning his Charge as soon as ever he had setled the Common-wealth in Peace and Safety and therefore only renewed the Lease of his Government every tenth year at the petition of the People Beside that he avoided the Titles of Dictator and Rex and Dominus as much as a Mariner does a Rock for fear of splitting setting the fate of his Father Julius before him for he too was murther'd as a Sea-mark not to affect too great and glorious Attributes lest he might have ship-wrack'd both the State and Himself upon the Rock of a proud or an offensive Title This Mr. Speaker was the moderation of wise Princes in former Ages they had a deference to the wisdom of this house and a fatherly care for the Liberty of the Subject They were not wont to call Parliaments only when they were forced to it by their own necessities to be the spunges of the Common-wealth and by their means to squeeze the Subjects money into their own Coffers and when they had served their own turns disband them but to advise and consult with their great Council about the great Affairs of State We have Mr. Speaker a Gracious Prince but he is abused and mis-led by Evil Counsellers we owe all the Mis-governments of the State and the Affronts of this House to their Tyranny and Insolence And if they will not know their Duty however let not us forget our Trust. We have now an Opportunity put into our hands his Majesty is engaged in an expensive War and cannot hold out without Supplyes and therefore before we Vote that let us present him our Remonstrances and grant him Subsidies upon no other condition than that he will first redress all our Grievances This Mr. Speaker was the wisdom of Sparta and Athens and by this method of proceeding they kept the Liberties of the Common-wealth inviolable against all the attempts and encroachments of Tyranny This was the language of Parliaments in the late Kings Reign and by these pedantick stories did the ill-affected Members of the Puritan and Republican Faction obstruct and embroil all Affairs till they plainly run the Kingdom into a necessity of a Civil War Not that I believe they had all of them any form'd design to subvert the Government no doubt many of them were wonderfully satisfied if the Company would but take notice of and admire their learning and to this purpose the same Speeches would serve indifferently at all times and upon all occasions whether they had or had not cause of complaint And to deal plainly with you I have read most of the Long-Parliament Speeches over and though I know you will chide me for calling a whole Parliament Coxcombs yet it is better to call them so than worse yet this censure I dare pass upon them without any suspicion of arrogance within my self That they were for the most part no better than School-boys Declamations that seem'd to be made for no other end than the exercise of Wit and Rhetorique and the Topicks from which they raised their Harangues were equally serviceable in any Cause pro or con such as Aphorisms Similitudes and Sentences out of ancient Authours but as for true reasoning they rarely seem'd to pretend to it or endeavour after it in short all their Discourses were much like yours and accommodated to People that took Confidence for Reason Non-sense for Mysteries and Rudeness for Wit and a judicious man that compares them would almost suspect your Book to be only a Rehearsal or rather an Epitome of their Speeches though I am not apt to conclude that you read them over on purpose to write after their Copy because I know I it is as natural for bad wits to jump as good There is a way of popular and impertinent talking that is common to the pedantique Haranguers of all Ages But they declaimed so long upon idle stories of Rome and Athens and little sayings of Cato and Seneca till they in sober earnest challeng'd so much of the Sovereign Power under pretext of Liberty of the Subject and Priviledge of Parliament as left nothing of Prerogative to the Prince beside a little Pageantry of State and an empty Title So that unless his Majesty would tamely have resign'd his Crown and disclaim'd all Regal Authority he had no other way left to defend it from violence but by force of Arms. They had already begun to seize and there was no way to make them unfasten but by knocking off their fingers But that which contributed as much as any thing to these disorders was the great resort of our young Gentry about that time to Geneva for Capons and Education where being throughly instructed in the principles of Modern Orthodoxy and there every Tradesman and Lay-Elder was able to inform them they generally return'd home disaffected to the establish'd Government both of Church and State and furnish'd with Doctrines of Divinity suitable to their Principles of Policy and by this means Calvin obtain'd as great an Interest and Power in the House of Commons as Lycurgus and scarce a Speech could be made without his Institutions and the distich of Praeter Apostolicas c. And so Mr. Speaker though Mr. Calvin the ablest Divine in the world since the death of the Apostles exact an entire obedience to all Princes whether good or bad without exception or dispensation So that suppose a negligent and slothful Prince who has no care at all of the publique safety who is so intent of his own private as to make markets of all Laws and Priviledges and to expose his Justice and Favour both to open sale so that according to Mr. Calvin