People with stronger Meat than with which the Church has fed her Children To preach the Doctrine of God's Secret Decrees To make the People Believe that the Lord has no more to lay to the Charge of an Elect Person yet in the height of Iniquity and Excess of Riot committing all the Abominations that can be committed than he has to lay to the Charge of a Saint Triumphant in Glory That God permits Sin that there may be room enough in the Play for Pardoning-Grace And many other such Doctrines as tend more to the Edification of the People than you can meet with in the Church of England Ch. Advoc. 'T is strange that Men should glory in their Shame value themselves for such wild Notions as never before obtain'd in the Church of God! Herein you excell the Church in Fancy in Errours but not in Truth Our Doctrines are Faith Hope Charity Humility Peace Meekness Justice Patience Obedience and Perseverance to the End Our Ministers teach the same Truths that our Dear Saviour and his Apostles taught Sound and Orthodox The Words of Eternal Life tending truly to Edification to build Men up in the Unity of the Church To grow in Grace in Knowledge and in all Vertue I would to God the Dissenters might be in Love with such Edifying Doctrines as these are But alas This talk of higher Notions of greater Edification is many times mere Wantonness and Instability of Humour and too often rather Fancy than Effect Men conceit that they are better edified not when they are more fully instructed in any weighty Point of Faith or more perfectly inform'd in some necessary Duty or more efficaciously mov'd to the Practice of what they know but when they are more gratified and pleas'd at the hearing of a Sermon or the like Those that are troubled with these itching Ears instead of being edified are commonly the most ignorant of all Men they often make an unwise choice in their Teacher and provoke God to leave them to the Vanity of their own Minds when they depend rather on the suppos'd Abilities of a Man than the Blessed Influences of the Holy Spirit and look more at Paul that plants and Apollos that waters than at God that gives the increase For it is the Blessing of God alone and not any Man's Skill in dispensing them that make the Word and Ordinances any way beneficial to us with the help of his Grace those Means of Instruction which we sometimes the most undervalue may be profitable to our Salvation without it our Ears or Fancies may be entertain'd But we cannot be edified by the most fluent and popular Tongue nor the most melting and pathetical Expressions in the World but much less by such Doctrines as were taught by the Dissenters when the Church was down I tremble to name them That the Scriptures cannot be said to be the Word of God and are no more to be credited than the Writings of Men being not a Divine but Humane Tradition That God has a hand in and is the Author of the Sinfulness of his People not of the Actions only but of the very Pravity which is in them That all Lies come out of his Mouth That the Prince of the Air that rules in the Children of Disobedience is God That in the Unity of the Godhead there is not a Trinity of Persons but that 't is a Popish Tradition That the Doctrine of Repentance is a Soul-destroying Doctrine That Children are not bound to obey their Parents at all if they be ungodly That the Soul of Man is mortal as the Soul of a Beast That there is no Resurrection on at all of the Bodies of Men nor Heaven nor Hell after this Life These are only a Taste not all nor the hundredth part nor the worst of those Doctrines taught by Dissenters in the late unhappy times when the wholsome Food of the Soul and the Dispensers of it were quite laid aside So much for Doctrine Diss Advoc. I protest Brother you have been too hard for me in this but Gentlemen of the Jury Truth may be on our side next time If we don't excell the Church in Doctrine let 's try for Worship Do you think that our Spiritual way of Worship is not better than the Forms of the Church That a Liturgy though made and review'd with that Prudence and Moderation Care and Circumspection Wisdom and Piety as any thing extant in that kind can be so good as the sudden indigested extempore Effusions of our Gifted Men Do you imagine that Inspir'd Men can be guilty of any undecent incoherent irreverent Expressions as some will complain of 'em for Or that a Form of Prayer can be so prevalent with the God of Order as a saying just what the Spirit hints What say you to that Ch. Advoc. I am sorry you should so far undervalue the Prayers of our Church and your own Judgment in comparing any performances of Prayer in your way to the most excellent Liturgy of the Church of England I durst put it upon this Expedient Let any Prayer made occasionally and extempore by the ablest and most cautious of those that magnifie the Conventicle way and despise ours be taken exactly in Writing and publish'd to the World I am very well assur'd that one Man without any great pains may find more things exceptionable in that single Prayer in a short time than the several Parties of Dissenters with all the Diligence they have hitherto used have been able to discover in the whole Service of the Church in more than a hundred Years Our Prayers as to the Substance are what Christ and his Apostles us'd in a Language understood by all those that are concern'd in them to which we may all safely say Amen But for sudden Prayers though they may happen to be good yet for the greatest part they are dangerous something of Heresie in every Sentence some Indecencies and Absurdities may be in every Word Reflect upon the Dissenters in that time when this Liturgy was out of use and every one left to his own Liberty 'T is scarce possible to believe what wild and prodigious Extravagancies were upon all occasions used in Holy things especially in Prayer the most immediate Act of Worship and Address to God 'T is an Affront to the Majesty of Religion that there shou'd be any thing in it Childish and Trivial Absurd and Frivolous that its Sacred Mysteries shou'd be expos'd to Contempt and Scandal by that Levity and Distraction that Heat and Boldness those Weaknesses and Indiscretions those loose raw and incongruous Effusions which in most Congregations of those times did too commonly attend it How can there be that Sobriety that Sense and true Devotion in an Extempore Prayer where the Mind is employ'd to find out Words and looks more like studying or making of a Prayer than Praying as in those Publick Forms which are consider'd and fixt where the Spirit or Soul has no more to
succeed Teach Men the Art of groping Hens And Grope for Grope makes them amends Wou'd every Man his Butt'ry shut Then neither Mealman's Dog nor yet A sharper Curr cou'd steal a bit Cheer up my Friends Flesh has its failing What if in Burrough 't is prevailing The matters not worth our bewailing For I have made it very plain Our Neighb'ring Saints are much more vain If this piece of Poetry works kindly for the Dissenters we 'll set a pleasant new Tune to 't it may be more grateful to some of our Saints than any Hymn or Psalm of David metred and set by the greatest Art of honest Hopkins and Sternhold in the Beginning of the Reformation Now we have sweetned the Court and put all into some good Harmony before the Jury goes out to agree upon their Verdict 't is proper to hear some able Counsel on both Sides relating to this Cause Between the DISSENTERS and the CHURCH Judge If you say no better for the Saints than has been hitherto offer'd in their Defence against the Book I give my Opinion That after all their Articles about the Errours and Insufficiencies of it the sober Party are Ten or Fourteen times worse than they seem'd before this Trial. But let the Jury do as they see fit I am not to prejudicate I am bound to let you know what I apprehend to be good Sense and Law to instruct not to govern you Pray attend to the Counsel for First the Dissenters Secondly the Church We 'll hear them with Patience Dissent Advoc. My Lord and Jury I 'm retain'd in the GOOD OLD CAUSE I 'm for Conventiclers against Church-Men I must tell the Court That the Cause before you at this time is very weighty the Peace of our Town the Wellfare of our Country depends upon it The first Argument I shall offer for the Saints is their Infallibility Every Dissenter from the Church carries an undoubted Pope in his own Breast so that 't is strange nay almost impossible for him to be mistaken in my Opinion Though all other Men find the woful Infirmities of Humane Nature the Weakness and Short-sightedness of their Understandings and the daily Experience how prone they are to Errours and Misapprehensions yet the Saints are alway sure positive and peremptory that they are in the Right and all others in the Wrong that differ from them The early Prepossessions of their Opinions the powerful Prejudices of Education an implicit and unexamin'd Belief of what their Guides and Leaders teach 'em have such mighty irresistable Force upon their minds That they no more doubt the Truth and Goodness of any Cause they 're engaged in than they question the Certainty of the Scriptures or the plainest Demonstrations in the Mathematicks Can it be suppos'd that Men who pass for Saints can have any Pride Partiality or Self-Conceit to put them out of the Right Way or that they can possibly think more highly of themselves and their Way than in Duty they ought to think If not The Conventicle is better than the Church Church Advoc. My Lord and the Court I am for the honest Church-Men was in hopes That the Dissenters had been sick of their Old Cause I know some of the Wisest of them wish they had never been at Controversie with the Church they have had such ill luck as to be worsted in all their Arguments In answer to this of Infallibility The Church-Men truly say That as there 's but one Independent so but One Infallible Being which is GOD. We derive all our Gifts from that Fountain and no Man can be sure of any Point of Faith but as he 's directed by the known Dictates of that Infallible Wisdom That the Dissenters are not void of Mistakes seeing they do apparently contradict and oppose each other and frequently themselves too in Matters of Religion That the things wherein we differ are confessedly disputable and therefore not certain and every Dissenter agrees to this That the Church is the Best Religion and Government next to that of his own particular Fancy and Opinion and by consequence must be really best as being held so in the most general Esteem and Approbation of Religious Men. The Presbyterian would rather turn Church-Man than be an Anabaptist The Independent would do so than be a Quaker The Quaker was he to change would chuse the Church sooner than any other Pesuasion in England so that the Church being voted for on all hands to have the second Place to be approv'd before and above all other but that which the particular Dissenter pretends to it may well be concluded by Majority of Voices to be the BEST to be preferr'd to any single Opinion whatsoever which has no other Foundation to support it but it self And this particular Opinion upon due Enquiry may proceed from nothing but Humour or Interest the Conduct of a mis-inform'd Judgment Passion Self-Love Fancy or Mistake more than the Real Concerns of Truth and Piety Both which are constantly defended by This Church A Church founded on the firmest Rock against which the Storms and Tempests the Policy and Force of Hell have not yet totally prevail'd nor ever will unless by our Divisions and Contempt we provoke the Vengeance of Heaven to remove her from us Dissent Advoc. Yet Brother we have terribly shak'd your Church and it seems but in a tottering Condition at this time Though Hell can never prevail so far but that there shall be a Church to the end of the World yet this is not meant of a National but the Universal Church of Christ Ch. Advoc. I grant that many National Churches where Christian Religion had a long time slourish'd have been deliver'd up into the Hands of Turks and Infidels we have then the greater reason to look about us And if there should be no Remedy but that our Church must fall shall English-Men throw it down Will it be any Credit to Dissenters to overturn the Church or to grow unreasonably fond of those methods to strengthen the Protestant Interest which the Malice and Subtilty of the Devil and his Instruments have contriv'd to destroy it Diss Advoc. That in all their Divisions the Dissenters will tell ye they have no ill Designs upon the Church only are for the Advancement of the Reform'd Religion into a greater Perfection than the Church of England is yet arriv'd at in these four Points Doctrine Worship Discipline and Life Ch. Advoc. I wish you had no worse Ends than these in your Separation and that upon fair Trial it may appear that these Ends are possible to be obtain'd by this Means the People are put in Expectation of a Blessed Change a fine New Church-Government a Presbytery for an Hierarchy and perhaps not long after a Government of State instead of a King Diss Advoc. Let me proceed distinctly I hope I may be able to satisfie the Court. First For Doctrine we are for proposing higher Notions than that Church ever taught To feed the
do than to mount upon to Heaven with the Wings of true Devotion and offer her Requests in these Words at the Throne of Grace Was it any Amendment instead of praying From Fornication Goood Lord deliver us to say with a Dissenter Lord Unlust us To leave out our admirable Collects for the peaceable and orderly Government of the Church and instead of these to blaspheme the Almighty by telling him If he did not finish the good Work which he had begun in the Reformation of the Church he wou'd shew himself to be a God of Confusion and such an one as by cunning Stratagems had contriv'd the Destruction of his own Children That God wou'd bless the King and mollifie his hard Heart that delights in Blood For that he was fall'n from Faith in God and become an Enemy to his Church Let thy Hand we pray thee O Lord our God be upon him and upon his Father's House But not upon thy People that they should be plagu'd O God! O God! many are the Hands lift up against us But there is one God it is thou thy self O Father who dost us more mischief than they all We know O Lord that Abraham made a Covenant Moses and David made a Covenant and our Saviour made a Covenant But thy Parliament-Covenant is greater than all Covenants with abundance of such intolerable stuff as this I cou'd name Places Time and Persons but I forbear Judge Have you any more to say upon this Head concerning Worship for the Dissenters Dess Advoc. My Lord 'T is the Way they have been us'd to and 't will be hard to persuade them to try any other Judge If that be all go on to the Third Head about Discipline or Church-Government I am willing to hear all out Diss Advoc. We thank your Lordship and the Court we have not much to say in This But New Lords New Laws we are for Change and rather than not have some Amendment in those things we have so long preach'd against nay if all that old Discipline is not laid aside we 'll venture the losing of all the Religion we have rather than submit to the Church Ch. Advoc. I 'm sorry you have no better Argument than Obstinacy When People cannot but acknowledge the Doctrine and Worship of a Church to be according to Truth 't is a Weakness an Absurdity to find fault with its Discipline which was appointed for the better Performance of Religion And the parting from that which is well establish'd the dis-setling of that which is well fixt is not the way to greater Purity and Perfection but to the Corruption and Decay of Religion unless you can shew that the Church was so much over-seen as to constitute Canons and Orders inconsistent with or destructive of the Establish'd Religion Wou'd the Church be so careful to Reform from Popery and to deliver a Pure Religion down to Posterity and not likewise take care of such a Discipline as might preserve the Esteem and Practice of that holy Religion Prove any Order of our Church sinful or not correspondent with Religion that Order that Usage shall immediately be discontinu'd This I am sure you and all the Dissenters in England cannot prove The single and plain Question then is Whether the Government of the Church or That among Dissenters is to be chosen by any Wise Man Look back upon the Changes made in Church-matters by Dissenters in the late Sanctified Times Those Changes those Alterations were not so conducive in their Nature for the Edifying and Well-governing of the Church as those things which they illegally remov'd As for Instance The Ordination by a Bishop accompanied with Presbyters was more certain and satisfactory than that by Presbyters without a Bishop Was it not better to have Forms of well-compos'd Prayers than to petition or rather affront the Almighty with Noise and Nonsense Was it not better to repeat the Creed standing than to leave it quite out of the Directory Was it an Advantage to Christian Piety to change the Gesture of Kneeling in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper when the Sacred Elements are given together with Prayer for that less-reverent one of Sitting of Sitting especially with the Hat on as the most uncomely Practice of some was and is The People being taught to cover the Head while the Minister was to remain bare among them Was the Alteration of giving the Elements an Amendment Read the Directory for Publick Worship in the time when the Dissenters did their best to excell the Church Take ye eat ye This is the Body of Christ which is broken for you This City is the New-Testament in the Blood of Christ which is shed for the Remission of the Sins of may The Words denoting Christ's present Crucifixion and either actually or in the future certainty of it give countenance to the Romish Sacrifice of the Mass Nor was the Civil Pledge of the Ring in Marriage better'd by the Invention of some Pastors who took a Ring of their Women-converts upon admittance into their Church The Forbidding the Observation of Christ's Nativity and other Holy-days did not add one Hairs-breadth to the Piety of the Nation but on the other Hand it took at least from the Common People one ready Means of fixing in their Memories the most useful History of the Christian Religion 'T is possible for meer Dwarfs in Understanding and Policy to contrive an Alteration in Government that may be pleasing to themselves for a time during their Passion and the Novelty of the Model in their own Fancy not yet disturb'd by some unforeseen Mischief or Inconvenience But 't is extreme difficult upon the whole matter to make a true and lasting Improvement fitted and fram'd to all Cases and Circumstances of Affairs in Religious Observances So that if we make a fair Comparison and let Experience and Reason rule in this Case we must say That the Government of the Church is Best still Diss Advoc. If we have got no Ground of the Establish'd Church in Matters of Doctrine Worship and Discipline I hope it may be granted we have the Advantage by much in the Purity of Life We are holier and less offensive than other Men. If you 'll not allow That we are certainly far more demure and private in our Vices more wary and cautious in letting 〈◊〉 Faults be seen by the World while the Church-men are most care 〈…〉 n that Point and seem far worse than they really are Ch. Advoc. 'T is worth our observation That no Argument has hitherto been offer'd in favour of the Dissenters but carries a sufficient Confutation along with it I have the Charity to think well of some Men who out of a true desire of pleasing God having no worldly Design at the bottom do in some Circumstances differ from us I am perswaded there are many well-meaning Dissenters who from their Hearts detest all known Wickedness And such only will rightly consider the Mischiefs of Separation which every one
be Impiety because 't is prosperous and permitted that is not hinder'd by Force and Violence inconsistent with a free Moral Agent then the Great Sultan and the Great Cham and the Great Mogull as well as the Great Bishop of Rome are by an equal Sound-Consequence the greatest Favourites of Heaven And then the Argument of Symmachus had been unanswerably conclusive against the Primitive Christians who for 300 Years and upwards lay groaning under the Yoke of the Heathens Tyranny or Lastly If Permission were still a Mark of Approbation then Dionysius or Diagoras had argu'd logically well when having robb'd the Delphick Temple and immediately after escap'd a Shipwrack He gave it out that the Gods had approv'd his Sacrilege Not at all that he believ'd but laugh'd at Providence Riches and Prosperity are not always Blessings to the Enjoyers of them but very often bestow'd on the worst of Men to their hurt The Divine Wisdom reserving a better Reward for his dearest Servants in the World Presb. and Indep My Lord We are not satisfi'd that our dividing and separating from the Church of England deserves so bad a Name as that of Schism if it does we must expect a very severe Sentence and the Court must be justifi'd in its Proceedings against us Judge You have had enough offer'd before by the Church's Advocate but to leave the Matter more clear take the Judgment of your Principal Men who when time was reason'd thus against those that subdivided from them If we be a Church of Christ and Christ hold Communion with us why do you separate from us If we be the Body of Christ do not they that separate from the Body separate from the Head also If the Apostle calls those Divisions of the Church of Corinth wherein Christians did not separate into divers formed Congregations in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Schisms 1 Cor. 1. 10. may not your Secession from us and professing you cannot join with us as Members and setting up Congregations of another Communion be more properly call'd Schism You gather Churches together out of your Churches and set up Churches in an opposite Way to our Churches and all this you do voluntarily and unwarrantably not having any sufficient Cause for it In the same Book they tell us of a Twofold Schism Negative and Positive Negative when Men do peaceably and quietly withdraw from Communion with a Church from which they are departed The other is when Persons withdrawing do consociate and withdraw themselves into a distinct and opposite Body setting up a Church against a Church which say they Camero calls a Schism by way of Eminence And farther tells us there are Four Causes that make a Separation from a Church lawful 1. When they that separate are grievously and intolerably persecuted 2. When the Church they separate from is Heretical 3. When 't is Idolatrous 4. When 't is the Seat of Antichrist And where none of these Four are found there the Separation is insufficient and Schism Now we are fully assur'd that none of these Four Causes can be charg'd upon our Congregations Therefore you must not be displeas'd with us if we blame you as guilty of positive Schism All which is as true now as it was then and as applicable to us and them and it was to them and their Dissenters The Presbyterians and Independents are indeed more guilty of Schism in separating from the truly Apostolical Church of England than they could be in dividing from each other Seekers But we think there are some things in the Constitution of that Church might be contriv'd to better Purposes and we would find out a Church that needs no Amendment no Alteration Judge Then you must be of no Church on this side Heaven you seek in vain because such Perfection is not in this World yet as great a Degree of it in the Church of England as in any Church or Congregation on Earth and for ought yet appears much greater But that every suppos'd Corruption in a Church is not a sufficient Ground of Separation or Warrant enough to rend and tear the Church in pieces Let Mr. Calvin judge between us who says That where-ever the Word of God is duly preach'd and reverently attended to and the true Use of the Sacraments kept up there is the plain Appearance of a True Church whose Authority no Man may safely despise or reject its Admonitions or resist its Counsel or set at nought its Discipline much less separate from it and violate its Unity For that our Lord has so great a Regard to the Communion of his Church That he accounts him an Apostate from his Religion who obstinately separates from any Christian Society which keeps up the true Ministry of the Word and Sacraments That such a Separation is a Denial of God and of Christ And that 't is a dangerous and pernicious Temptation so much as to think of separating from such a Church the Communion whereof is never to be rejected so long as it continues in the true use of the Word and Sacraments Though otherwise it be overrun with many Blemishes and Corruptions Which is as plain and full a Determination of the Case as if he particularly design'd it against the Doctrine and Practice of the Modern Dissenters from our Church Quak. I hope the Nation will yet believe us to be very honest harmless Men who deal fairly and kindly with all Persons never oppressing griping or defrauding any Man we are at a Word avoid abundance of that vain unnecessary Talk which others use in Trading and therefore I humbly desire that the Court would acquit us Judge You have forfeited much of that good Opinion that the Nation once had of you and all the Riches you boasted of were gotten by Peoples Credulity trusting you too much before they try'd you All your Religion is now dwindled into a bare Pretence of Honesty which at best is not equal to that of the more Ancient Heathens Your YEA or NAY your Single Word shall bite as much as a Thousand a Lye may soon be told and if the World complains of you for any Dishonesty in over-reaching or deceiving your Neighbours all is put off with your Spiritual Distinction 'T is not say you downright Cheating of Men but a sanctifi'd Out-witting 'em which is own'd and practised amongst you Presbyt My Lord We have two or three Gentlemen to produce in our Vindication Judge Who are they Presbyt St. Hierome Aerius and Honest John Calvin The first says That Bishop and Presbyter are all one The second That they differ nothing in Order Dignity and Power And the last was so offended with Episcopacy That he threw out the Bishop of Geneva and turn'd the Name of Bishop into that of Superintendent and under that Title He and his Godly Successours have there about one hundred Years govern'd that Church Judge Hierome must be a Saint now for letting fall one single Sentence in favour of the Presbyterians But