distance and disproportion forasmuch as obedience is a virtue of so absolute necessity and so diffusive usefulness whereas the goodness of those little things they oppose to it is so small that it is confessedly scarce discernable and their Consciences as nice and curious as they are not able to determine positively whether they are good or evil And therefore what a prodigious madness is it to weigh such trifling and contemptible things against the vast mischiefs and inconveniences of disobedience The voice of the publick Laws cannot but drown the uncertain whispers of a tender Conscience all its scruples are hushed and silenced by the commands of Authority It dares not whimper when that forbids and the nod of a Prince aws it into silence and submission But if they dare to murmur and their proud stomachs will swell against the rebukes of their Superiors then there is no remedy but the rod and correction They must be chastised out of their peevishness and lashed into obedience In a word though Religion so highly consults the interests of Common-wealths and is the greatest instrument of the peace happiness of Kingdoms yet so monstrously has it been abused by the folly of some and wickedness of others that nothing in the world has been the mother of more mischief to Government The main cause of which has been mens not observing the due scale and subordination of duties and that in case of competition the greater always destroys the less For hence have they opposed the Laws and by consequence the peace of the Society for an Opinion or a Ceremony or a subordinate instrumental duty whereas had they soberly considered the important necessity of their obedience they would scarce have found any duty of moment enough to weigh against it For seeing almost all virtues are injoined us in order to the felicity of man and seeing there is nothing more conducive to it than that which tends to the Publick weal and good of all and seeing this is the design and natural tendency of the Publick Laws and our obedience to them that had need be hugely certainly and absolutely evil that cancels their obligation and dispences with our obedience and not a Form or a Ceremony or an outward expression or any other instrumental part of Religion But some menthink it better to be disputative than peaceable and that there is more godliness in being captious and talkative than in being humble and obedient It is a pleasure to them to be troublesome to Authority they beat about and search into every little corner for doubts exceptions against their commands And how do they triumph when they can but start a scruple They labour to stumble at Atoms to boggle at straws and shadows and cherish their scruples till they become as big as they are unreasonable and lay so much stress upon them as to make them out-weigh the greatest and most weighty things of the Law And it is prodigiously strange and yet as common too to consider how most men who pretend and that perhaps sincerely to great tenderness of Conscience and scruple postures and innocent ceremonies are so hardy as to digest the most wicked and most mischievous villanies They can dispence with spightfulness malice disobedience schism and disturbance of the Publick Peace and all to nourish a weak and an impotent scruple and in pursuit of any little conceit they will run themselves into the greatest and most palpable enormities and will cherish it till it weighs down the peace of Kingdoms and Fundamental Principles of common honesty Find me a man that is obstinately scrupulous and I will shew you one that is incurably seditious and whoever will prefer his scruples before the great duties of obedience peace quietness and humility cannot avoid being often betrayed into tumults and seditions But if we will resolve to be tender of our obedience to the great undoubted and unalterable commands of the Gospel that will defend our Consciences against the vexation of scruples and little inadvertencies protect the publick from all the disturbances of a peevish and wayward godliness and secure our acceptance with God without being so punctual and exact in the Offerings of Mint and Cummin Sect. 6. In cases and disputes of a publick concern private men are not properly sui Iuris they have no power over their own actions they are not to be directed by their own judgments or determined by their own wills but by the commands and determinations of the Publick Conscience And if there be any sin in the command he that imposed it shall answer for it and not I whose whole Duty it is to obey The commands of Authority will warrant my obedience my obedience will hallow or at least excuse my action and so secure me from sin if not from error because I follow the best guide and most probable direction I am capable of And though I may mistake my integrity shall preserve my innocence And in all doubtful and disputable cases it is better to erre with Authority than be in the right against it not only because the danger of a little error and so it is if it be disputable is out-weighed by the importance of the great duty of obedience that is more serviceable to the main ends of Religion than a more nice and exact way of acting in opposition to Government but also because they are to be supposed the fittest Judges of what tends to the Publick Good whose business it is to understand Publick Affairs And therefore in all such matters their commands are the supream Rule of Conscience as being more competent Judges of Publick Concerns than mens own private perswasions and so must have a Superior Authority over them and bind them to yield and submit to their determinations And if we take away this Condescension of our Private Consciences to Publick Authority we immediately dissolve all Government for in case of dissention unless we submit our perswasions to their commands their commands must submit to our perswasions And then let any man tell me Wherein consists the power of Princes when it may be controlled by every Subjects opinion and what can follow but perfect disorder and confusion when every man will be governed by nothing but his own conceits And if Subjects may be allowed to dispute the prudence and convenience of all Laws Government would be but a weak and helpless thing and Princes would command at the will and pleasure of their Subjects And therefore people are never curious in their exceptions against any Publick Laws unless in matters of Religion and in that case they study for Reasons to disobey because it gratifies their pride vanity to seem more knowing than their Governours in that part of wisdom that they think most valuable Self-conceit and Spiritual Pride are strange Temptations to Disobedience and were there not something of this in it men would find out other commands more liable to their exceptions For how seldom is it that
unaccountable that the Supreme Magistrate may not be permitted to determine the Circumstances and Appendages of the subordinate Ministeries to Moral Virtue and yet should be allowed in all Common-wealths to determine the particular Acts and Instances of these Virtues themselves For Example Justice is a prime and natural Virtue and yet its particular Cases depend upon humane Laws that determine the bounds of Meum and Tuum The Divine Law restrains Titius from invading Caius's Right and Propriety but what that is and when it is invaded only the Laws of the Society they live in can determine And there are some Cases that are Acts of Injustice in England that are not so in Italy otherwise all Places must be govern'd by the same Laws and what is a Law to one Nation must be so to all the World Whereas 't is undeniably evident That neither the Law of God nor of Nature determine the particular Instances of most Virtues but for the most part leave that to the Constitutions of National Laws They in general forbid Theft Incest Murther and Adultery but what these Crimes are they determine not in all Cases but is in most particulars to be explained by the Civil Constitutions and whatsoever the Law of the Land reckons among these Crimes that the Law of God and of Nature forbids And now is it not strangely humoursome to say That Magistrates are instrusted with so great a Power over mens Conscience in these great and weighty Designs of Religion and yet should not be trusted to govern the indifferent or at least less material Circumstances of those things that can pretend to no other Goodness than as they are Means serviceable to Moral Purposes That they should have Power to make that a Particular of the Divine Law that God has not made so and yet not be able to determine the use of an indifferent Circumstance because forsooth God has not determin'd it In a word That they should be fully impowered to declare new Instances of Vertue and Vice and to introduce new Duties in the most important parts of Religion and yet should not have Authority enough to declare the Use and decency of a few Circumstances in its subservient and less material Concerns § 5. The whole State of Affairs is briefly this Man is sent into the World to live happily here and prepare himself for happiness hereafter this is attain'd by the practice of Moral Vertues and Pious Devotions and wherein these mainly consist Almighty Goodness has declared by the Laws of Nature and Revelation but because in both there are changeable Cases and Circumstances of things therefore has God appointed his Trustees and Officials here on Earth to Act and Determine in both according to all Accidents and Emergencies of Affairs to assign new Particulars of the Divine Law to declare new Bounds of right and wrong which the Law of God neither does nor can limit because of necessity they must in a great measure depend upon the Customs and Constitutions of every Common-wealth And in the same manner are the Circumstances and outward Expressions of Divine Worship because they are variable according to the Accidents of Time and Place entrusted with less danger of Errour with the same Authority And what Ceremonies this appoints unless they are apparently repugnant to their Prime end become Religious Rites as what particular Actions it constitutes in any Species of Virtue become new Instances of that Virtue unless they apparently contradict its Nature and Tendency Now the two Primary Designs of all Religion are either to express our honourable Opinion of the Deity or to advance the Interests of Vertue and Moral Goodness so that no Rites or Ceremonies can be esteemed unlawful in the Worship of God unless they tend to debauch men either in their Practices or their Conceptions of the Deity And 't is upon one or both of these Accounts that any Rites and Forms of Worship become criminally superstitious and such were the Lupercalia the Eleusinian Mysteries the Feasts of Bacchus Flora and Venus because they were but so many Festivals of Lust and Debauchery and such were the Salvage and Bloody Sacrifices to Saturn Bellona Moloch Baal-Peor and all other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Antient Paganism because they supposed the Divine Being to take pleasure in the Miseries and Tortures of its Creatures And such is all Idolatry in that it either gives right Worship to a wrong Object or wrong Worship to a right one or at least represents an infinite Majesty by Images and Resemblances of finite things and so reflects disparagement upon some of the Divine Attributes by fastning dishonourable Weaknesses and Imperfections upon the Divine Nature As for these and the like Rites and Ceremonies of Worship no Humane Power can command them because they are directly contradictory to the Ends of Religion but as for all others that are not so any lawful Authority may as well enjoyn them as it may adopt any Actions whatsoever into the Duties of Morality that are not contrary to the Ends of Morality § 6. But a little farther to illustrate this we may observe That in matters both of Moral Vertue and Divine Worship there are some Rules of Good and Evil that are of an Eternal and Unchangeable Obligation and these can never be prejudiced or altered by any Humane Power because the Reason of their Obligation arises from a necessity and constitution of Nature and therefore must be as Perpetual as that But then there are other Rules of Duty that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of Humane Life and depend chiefly upon Contracts and Positive Laws of Kingdoms these suffer Variety because their Matter and their Reason does so Thus in the matter of Murther there are some Instances of an unalterable Nature and others that are changeable according to the various Provisions of Positive Laws and Constitutions To take away the life of an innocent Person is forbidden by such an indispensable Law of Nature that no Humane Power can any way directly or indirectly make it become lawful in that no Positive Laws can so alter the Constitution of Nature as to make this Instance of Villany cease to be mischievous to Mankind and therefore 't is Capital in all Nations of the World But then there are other particular Cases of this Crime that depend upon Positive Laws and so by consequence are liable to change according to the different Constitutions of the Common-wealths men live in Thus though in England 't is Murther for an injured Husband to kill an Adulteress taken in the Act of Uncleanness because 't is forbidden by the Laws of this Kingdom yet in Spain and among the old Romans it was not because their Laws permitted it and if the Magistrate himself may punish the Crime with Death he may appoint whom he pleases to be his Executioner And the Case is the same in reference to Divine Worship in which there are some things of
War It Enervates all its own Laws of Nature by Founding the Reason of their Obligation upon meer Self-Interest Which false and absurd Principle being removed all that is Base or peculiar in the whole Hypothesis is utterly Cashier'd § 1. WHen any thing that is Apparently and Intrinsecally Evil is the Matter of an Humane Law whether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical Concern here God is to be obeyed rather than Man No Circumstances can alter the Rules of Prime and Essential Rectitude their goodness is Eternal and Unchangeable And therefore in all such Actions Disobedience to Humane Laws is so far from being a Sin that it becomes an indispensable Duty Where the good or evil of an Action is determined by the Law of Nature no Positive Humane Law can take off its Morality because 't is in it self repugnant to the principles of right Reason by consequence as unchangeable as that And therefore if the Supreme Magistrate should make a Law not to believe the Being of God or Providence the Truth of the Gospel the Immortality of the Soul that Law can no more bind than if a Prince should command a man to murther his Father or to ravish his Mother because the Obligatory Power of all such Laws is antecedently rescinded by a stronger and more Indispensable Obligation And thus has every Man a natural right to be Virtuous and no Authority whatsoever can deny him the liberty of acting Virtuously without being guilty of the foulest Tyranny and Injustice Not so much because Subjects are in any thing free from the Authority of the Supreme Power on Earth as because they are subject to a Superiour in Heaven and they are only then excused from the duty of obedience to their Sovereign when they cannot give it without Rebellion against God So that it is not originally any right of their own that exempts them from a subjection to the Sovereign Power in all things but 't is purely Gods right of governing his own Creatures that Magistrates then invade when they make Edicts to violate or controul his Laws And those who would take off from the Consciences of men all obligations antecedent to those of humane Laws instead of making the Power of Princes supreme absolute and uncontroulable they utterly enervate all their Authority and set their Subjects at perfect liberty from all their Commands For if we once remove all the antecedent obligations of Conscience and Religion men will be no further bound to submit to their Laws than only as themselves shall see convenient and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to rebel as oft as it is their Interest In that the Laws of Superiours passing no Obligation upon the Consciences of Subjects they neither are nor can be under any stronger Engagements to Subjection than to preserve themselves from the Penalties and Inflictions of the Law and so by consequence may despise its Obligation whenever they can hope to escape its punishment Now how must this weaken the Power and supplant the Thrones of Princes if every Subject may despise their Laws or invade their Sovereignty whenever he can hope to build his own Fortune upon their Ruines How would it expose their Scepters to the continual Attempts of Rebels and Usurpers when every one that has strength enough to wrest it out of his Princes hands has Right and Title enough to hold it What security could Princes have of their Subjects Loyalty that will own their Power as long as it shall be their interest and when it ceases to be so call it Tyranny How shall they ever be secured by any Promises Oaths and Covenants of Allegiance that have no other band but self-security or hope of Exemption from the Penalties of the Law Will not the most sacred Bonds and Compacts leave them in as insecure a condition as they found them in In that Self-advantage would have kept their Subjects loyal and obedient without Oaths and nothing else will do it with them and therefore they can add no new Obligations to that of Interest For if to perform their Covenants be advantageous they are bound to perform them by the Laws of prudence and discretion without the Oath as much as with it if disadvantageous no Oath can oblige them in that Interest and Self-preservation is the only enforcement of all their Covenants and therefore when that Tye happens to cease their Obligation becomes Null and Void and they may observe them if they please and if they please break them § 2. But the vanity and groundlesness of this opinion will more fully appear by discovering the lamentable Foundation on which it stands and that is a late wild Hypothesis concerning the Nature and Original of Government which is briefly this That the natural condition of Mankind is a State and Posture of War of every man against every man in that all men being born in a condition of equality they have all an equal right to all things and because all cannot enjoy all hence every man becomes an Enemy to every man in which State of Hostility there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as Anticipation that is by Force or Wiles to master the persons of all men he can till he see no other Power great enough to endanger himself so that there is no remedy but that in the State of Nature all men must be obliged to seek and contrive in order to their own security one anothers Destruction But because in this Condition Mankind must for ever groan under all the miseries and calamities of War therefore they have wisely chosen by mutual consent to enter into Contracts and Covenants of mutual trust in which every man has in order to his own Security been content to relinquish his natural and unlimited right to every thing and hereby they enter into a state of Peace and Government in which every man engages by solemn Oath and Covenant to submit himself to the Publick Laws in order to his own private safety So that according to this Hypothesis there are no Rules of Right or Wrong antecedent to the Laws of the Common-wealth but all men are at absolute liberty to do as they please and how cruel soever they may be to one another they can never be injurious there being nothing just or unjust but what is made so by the Laws of the Society to which all its Members covenant to submit when they enter into it This Hypothesis as odde as it is is become the Standard of our Modern Politicks by which men that pretend to understand the real Laws of Wisdom and Subtlety must square their Actions and therefore is swallowed down with as much greediness as an Article of Faith by the Wild and Giddy People of the Age. And of the reality of it none can doubt but Fops and raw-brain'd Fellows that understand nothing of the World or the Complexion of Humane Nature Now 't is but labour in vain
that distinguish their Parties And this cannot but be a mighty endearment of their Prince to them when he neglects and discountenances his best Subjects only because they are the godly Party for so every Party is to it self to join himself to their profest and irreconcileable Enemies And they will be wonderfully forward to assist a Patron of Idolatry and Superstition or an Enemy to the power of godliness for these are the softest words that different Sects can afford one another And withal I might adde That they must needs be much in love with him when they have reason to believe that they lie perpetually under his displeasure and that he looks upon them as little better than Enemies So that if a Prince permit different Parties and interests of Religion in his Dominions however he carries himself towards them he shall have at least all Parties discontented but one for if himself be of any he displeases all but that if of none he displeases all And Zealous and Religious People of all sorts must needs be wonderfully in love with an Atheist and there is no remedy but he must at least be thought so if he be not of any distinct and visible profession CHAP. VI. Of things Indifferent and of the Power of the Civil Magistrate in Things undetermined by the Word of God The Contents THe Mystery of Puritanism lies in this Assertion That nothing ought to be established in the Worship of God but what is expresly commanded in the Word of God The Wildness Novelty and unreasonableness of this Principle It makes meer Obedience to lawful Authority sinful It takes away all possibility of Settlement in any Church or Nation It is the main pretense of all pious Villanies It cancels all Humane Laws and makes most of the Divine Laws useless and impracticable It obliges men to be seditious in all Churches in the World in that there is no Church that has not some Customs and Vsages peculiar to it self All that pretend this Principle do and must act contrary to it The exorbitancy of this Principle makes all yielding and condescension to the men that plead it unsafe and impolitick Wherein the perfection and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures consists Of the Vanity of their Distinction who tell us That the Civil Magistrate is to see the Laws of Christ executed but to make none of his own The dangerous consequents of their way of arguing who would prove That God ought to have determined all Circumstances of his own Worship 'T is scarce possible to determine all Circumstances of any outward action they are so many and so various The Magistrate has no way to make men of this perswasion comply with his will but by forbidding what he would have done The Puritans upbraided with Mr. Hooker's Book of Ecclesiastical Politie and challeng'd to answer it Their Out-cries against Popery Will-worship Superstition adding to the Law of God c. retorted upon themselves The main Objection against the Magistrates power in Religion proposed viz. That 't is possible that he may impose things sinful and superstitious This Objection lies as strongly against all manner of Government Our inquiry is after the best way of settling things not that possibly might be but that really is Though Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction may be abused yet 't is then less mischievous than Liberty of Conscience The Reason of the necessity of subjection to the worst of Governours because Tyranny is less mischievous than Rebellion or Anarchy The Author of the Book entituled Vindiciae contra Tyrannos confuted That it may and often does so happen that 't is necessary to punish men for such perswasions into which they have innocently abused themselves Actions are punishable by Humane Laws not for their sinfulness but for their ill Consequence to the Publick This applied to the Case of a well-meaning Conscience Sect. 1. ALL things as well Sacred as Civil that are not already determined as to their Morality i. e. that are not made necessary Duties by being commanded or sinful Actions by being forbidden either by the Law of Nature or positive Law of God may be lawfully determined either way by the Supreme Authority and the Conscience of every subject is tied to yield Obedience to all such Determinations This Assertion I lay down to oppose the first and the last and the great Pretence of Non-conformity and wherein as one observeth the very Mystery of Puritanism consisteth viz. That nothing ought to be established in the Worship of God but what is authorized by some Precept or Example in the Word of God that is the complete and adequate Rule of Worship and therefore Christian Magistrates are only to see that executed that Christ has appointed in Religion but to bring in nothing of their own they are tied up neither to add nor diminish neither in the matter nor manner So that whatever they injoin in Divine Worship if it be not expresly warranted by a Divine Command how innocent soever it may be in it self it presently upon that account loses not only its Liberty but its Lawfulness it being as requisite to Christian practice that things indifferent should still be kept indifferent as things necessary be held necessary This very Principle is the only Fountain and Foundation of all Puritanism from which it was at first derived and into which it is at last resolved A pretence so strangely wild and humorsom that it is to me an equal wonder either that they should be so absurd as seriously to believe it or if they do not that they should be so impudent as thus long and thus confidently to pretend it when it has not the least shadow of Foundation either from Reason or from Scripture and was scarce ever so much as thought of till some men having made an unreasonable Separation from the Church of England were forced to justifie themselves by as unreasonable Pretences For what can be more incredible than that things that were before lawful and innocent should become sinful upon no other score than their being commanded i. e. that meer obedience to lawful Authority should make innocent actions criminal For the matter of the Law is supposed of it self indifferent and therefore if obedience to the Law be unlawful it can be so for no other reason than because 't is Obedience So that if Christian Liberty be so awkard a thing as these men make it 't is nothing else but Christian Rebellion 't is a Duty that binds men to disobedience and forbids things under that formality because Authority commands them Now what a reproach to the Gospel is this that it should be made the only Plea for Sedition What a scandal to Religion that tenderness of Conscience should be made the only Principle of Disobedience and that nothing should so much incline men to be refractory to Authority as their being conscientious What a perverse folly is it to imagine That nothing but opposition to Government can secure our liberty And
his Governours with nice and curious disputes the Authority of the Law stifles all scruples and trifling objections And thus where there was no apparent repugnancy to the Law of God we find none more compliant and conformable in all other things than the Apostles freely using any Customs of the Synagogue or Iewish Church that were not expresly cancelled by some Divine Prohibition But further this their Apology is as forcible a Plea in concerns of Civil Justice and common honesty as in Matters of Religion it holds equally in both in cases of a certain and essential injustice and fails equally in both in doubtful and less material cases and was as fairly urged by that famous Lawyer Papinian who upon this account when the Emperor commanded him to defend and justifie the lawfulness of Parricide chose rather to die than to Patronize so monstrous a villany Here the wickedness was great and palpable But in matters more doubtful and less material where the case is nice and curious and not capable of any great Interest or great reason there Obedience out-weighs and evacuates all Doubts Jealousies and suspicions And what wise or honest man will offend or provoke his Superiours upon thin pretences and for little regards And if every man that can raise doubts and scruples and nice Exceptions against a Law shall therefore set himself free from its obligation then farewel all Peace and all Government For what more easie to any man that understands the Fundamental Grounds and Reasons of Moral Equity than to pick more material quarrels against the Civil Laws of any Common-wealth than our Adversaries can pretend to against our Ecclesiastical Constitutions And now shall a Philosopher be excused from obedience to the Laws of his Country because he thinks himself able to make exceptions to their Prudence and Convenience and to prove them not so useful to the Publick nor so agreeable to the Fundamental Rules of natural Justice and Equity as himself could have contrived What if I am really perswaded that I can raise much more considerable objections against Littletons Tenures than ever these men have or shall be able to produce against our Ceremonial Constitutions Though it be easie to be mistaken in my conceit yet whether I am or am not it is all one if I am confident And now it would be mightily conducive to the interests of Justice and Publick Peace for me and all others of my Fond Perswasion in this particular to make Remonstrances to the Laws of the Land to Petition the King and Parliament to leave us at the liberty of our own Conscience and Discretion to follow the best Light God has given us for the setlement of our own estates because we think we can do it more exactly according to the Laws of Natural Iustice than if we are tied up to the positive Laws of the Land Thus that groundless and arbitrary maxim of the Law That inheritances may lineally descend but not lineally ascend whereby the Father is made uncapable of being immediate Heir to the Son would be thought by a Philosopher prejudicial to one of the most equal and most ingenuous Laws of Nature viz. The gratitude of Children to Parents which this Law seems in a great measure to hinder by alienating those things from them whereby we are best able to express it What if I have been happy in a loving and tender Father that has been strangely solicitous to leave me furnished with all the comforts and conveniences of life that declined not to forego any share of his own ease and happiness to procure mine that has spent the greatest part of his care and industry to bless me according to the proportion of his abilities with a good fortune and a good education and has perhaps out of an over-tender solicitude for my welfare reduc'd himself to great streights and exigences How monstrous unnatural must the contrivance of this Law appear to me that when the bounty of Providence has blest me with a fortune answerable to the good old Mans desires and endeavours if I should happen to be cut off before him by an untimely death all that whereby I am able to recompence his Fatherly tenderness should in the common and ordinary course of Law be conveyed from him to another person the stream of whose affections was confined to another Channel and who being much concerned for his own Family could in all probability be but little concerned for me What an unnatural and unjust Law is this that designs as far as it can to cut off the streams of our natural Affections and disposes of our possessions contrary to the very first tendencies and obligations of Nature So easie a thing is it to talk little Plausibilities against any Laws whose obligation is positive and not of a prime and absolute necessity And yet down-right Rebellion it would be if I or any man else should refuse subjection to these and the like Laws upon these the like pretences And thus we see is the case all the way equal between Laws Civil and Laws Ecclesiastical In all matters greatly and notoriously wicked the nature of the action out-weighs the duty of Obedience but in all cases less certain and less material the duty of Obedience out-weighs the nature of the action And this may suffice to shew from the Subject Matters of all doubts and scruples That they are not of consideration great enough to be opposed to the commands of Authority And this leads me from the matter of a scrupulous Conscience to consider its Authority And therefore Sect. 5. As the objects of a scrupulous Conscience are of too mean importance to weigh against the mischiefs of Disobedience so are its obligations too weak to prevail against the commands of Publick Authority For when two contradictory obligations happen to encounter the greater ever cancels the less because if all good be eligible then so are all the degrees of goodness too And therefore to that side on which the greater good stands our duty must ever incline otherwise we despise all those degrees of goodness it contains in it above the other For in all the Rules of Goodness there is great inequality and variety of degrees some are prescribed for their own native excellency usefulness and others purely for their subserviency to these Now when a greater a lesser virtue happen to clash as it frequently falls out in the transaction of Humane Affairs there the less always gives place to the greater because it is good only in order to it and therefore where its subordination ceases there its goodness ceases and by consequence its obligation For no subordinate or instrumental dutys are absolutly commanded or commended but become good or evil by their Accidental Relations their goodness is not intrinsick but depends upon the goodness of their end and their being directed to a good end if they are not intrinsically evil makes them virtuous because their Morality is entirely relative and
changeable and so alters its colours of good and evil by its several aspects and postures to various and different ends And therefore they never carry any Obligation in them when they interfere with higher more useful Duties And hence it comes to pass that it is absolutely impossible for any man to be reduced into a necessity of sinning because though two inferiour and subordinate Duties may sometimes happen to be inconsistent with each other or with some duty of an absolute and unalterable goodness yet the nature of things is so handsomly contrived that it is utterly impossible that things should ever happen so crosly as to make two essential and indispensable Duties stand at mutual opposit on And therefore no man can ever be forc'd to act against one out of compliance with the other And if there be any contrariety between a natural and instrumental Duty there the case is plain that the greater evacuates the less if between two instrumental Duties it can scarce so fall out but that some emergent circumstances shall make one of them the more necessary but if they are both equally eligible there is no difficulty and a man may do as he pleases It is indeed possible for any man by his own voluntary choice to entangle himself in this sad perplexity but there is no culpable Error that is unavoidable and every sinfully erroneous Conscience is voluntary and vincible And if men will not part with their sinful Errors it is not because they cannot but because they will not avoid them And if they resolve to abuse themselves no wonder if their sin be unavoidable but then the necessity is the effect of their own choice And so all sin is inevitable when the peremptory determination of the will has made it necessary But as for the nature of all the Laws of Goodness in themselves they are so wisely contrived that it is absolutely impossible any circumstances should ever fall out so awkardly as to make one sin the only way to escape another or a necessary passage to a necessary Duty Now to apply this general Rule of Conscience to our particular case there is not any Precept in the Gospel set down in more positive and unlimited expressions or urged with more vehement motives and perswasions than obedience to Government because there are but few if any Duties of a weightier and more important necessity than this And for this reason is it that God has injoined it with such an absolute and unrestrained severity thereby to intimate that nothing can restrain the universality of its obligatory power but evident unquestionable disobedience to himself The duty of Obedience is the original and Fundamental Law of Humane Societies and the only advantage that distinguishes Government from Anarchy This takes away all dissentions by reducing every mans private will and judgment to the determination of Publick Authority Whereas without it every single person is his own Governour and no man else has any power or command over his actions i. e. He is out of the state of Government and Society And for this reason is obedience and condescension to the wisdom of Publick Authority one of the most absolute and indispensable duties of mankind as being so indispensably necessary to the peace and preservation of Humane Societies Now a Conscience that will not stand to the Decrees and Determinations of its Governors subverts the very Foundations of all Civil Society that subsists upon no other principle but mens submitting their own judgments to the decisions of Authority in order to the publick peace and setlement without which there must of necessity be eternal disorders and confusions And therefore where the Dictates of a private Conscience happen to thwart the determinations of the publick Laws they in that case lose their binding power because if in that case they should oblige it would unavoidably involve all Societies in perpetual tumults and disorders Whereas the main end of all Divine as well as Humane Laws is the prosperity and preservation of Humane Society So that where any thing tends to the dissolution of Government and undermining of Humane happiness though in other circumstances it were virtuous yet in this it becomes criminal as destroying a thing of greater goodness than it self And hence though a doubtful and scrupulous Conscience should oblige in all other cases yet when its commands run counter to the commands of Authority there its obligatory power immediately ceases because to act against it is useful to vastly more noble and excellent purposes than to comply with it In that every man that thwarts and disobeys the Laws of the Common-wealth does his part to disturb its Publick Peace that is maintained by nothing else but obedience and submission to its Laws Now this is manifestly a bigger mischief and inconvenience than the foregoing of any doubts and scruples can amount to And therefore unless Authority impose upon me something that carries with it more evil and mischief than there is convenience in the peace and happiness of the whole Society I am indispensably bound to yield obedience to his commands And though I scrupulously fear lest the Magistrates injunctions should be superstitious yet because I am not sure they are so and because a little irregularity in the external expressions of Divine Worship carries with it less mischief and enormity than the disturbance of the Peace of Kingdoms I am absolutely obliged to lay aside my doubt rather than disobey the Law because to preserve it naturally tends to vast mischiefs and confusion whereas the inconvenience of my acting against it is but doubtful and though it were certain yet it is small and comparatively inconsiderable And therefore to act against the inclinations of our own doubts and scruples is so far from being criminal that it is an eminent instance of Virtue and implies in it besides its subserviency to the welfare of mankind the great duties of Modesty Peaceableness and Humility And as for what some are forward enough to object that this is To do evil that good may come of it it is a vain and frivolous exception and prevented in what I have already discoursed in that that Rule is concerned only in things absolutely and essentially evil whose nature no case can alter no circumstance can extenuate and no end can sanctifie But things that are only subserviently good or evil derive all their Virtue from the greater Virtue they wait upon and therefore where a meaner or an instrumental duty stands in competition with an essential Virtue its contrariety destroys its goodness and instead of being less virtuous becomes altogether sinful for though it have abstractedly some degrees of goodness yet when it chances to oppose any duty that has more and more excellent degrees it becomes evil and unreasonable by as many degrees as that excels it And one would think this case should be past dispute as to the matters of our present Controversie that are of so vast a
monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere Verpos They would not so much as direct the way to any but a circumcised Brother nor bestow a Cup of cold Water upon a thirsty Samaritan The Elect are confined to their own Party and all besides are the Wicked and Reprobate of the Earth hated of God and unfit to be beloved by his People And this possesses their minds with a holy Inhumanity and then if the Saints ever get into Power no Tyrant so cruel and butcherly and they have the same esteem of the Wicked as of Insects or Vermin and use them accordingly But when they are out of Power they are then forced to support their Malice with Slanders and Calumnies and proud Comparisons when they meet and gossip together How do they congratulate each other that they are not as this or that Formalist and the greatest part of their Idle Tattle is usually spent either in Censuring or Pitying or Slandering some of their Neighbours as poor carnal and unconverted Wretches And when they deign to converse with the Vnregenerate and Men of the World i. e. all out of their own Rowt they make them keep their distance and the Language of their Deportment is that of their Predecessors in the Prophet Isaiah stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holier than thou In brief whoever is proud and conceited upon the score of Religion naturally falls into the most savage insolence and baseness of Nature and is utterly uncapable of being either good Subject or good Neighbour Now to lash these morose and churlish Zealots with smart and twinging Satyrs is so far from being a criminal passion that 't is a zeal of Meekness and Charity and a prosecution of the grand and diffusive duty of humanity and proceeds only from an earnest desire to maintain the common Love and Amity of Mankind And though good manners oblige us to treat all other sorts of People with gentle and civil Language yet when we have to do with the Scribes and Pharisees we must point our Reproofs with sharp Invectives we must discover them to themselves to humble them we must lance their Tumour and take out the Core of their proud Flesh before we can cure them Anodynes and softer Medicines make no Impressions upon them to treat them smoothly does but feed the humour soft and tender Words do but tempt their disdain and sooth up their Vanity they think you flatter and fawn upon them if you speak them fair your Civility they will interpret Respect and a forced Esteem of their Godliness They know that you and the rest of the World hate the people of God and would use them basely and inhumanely but that the greatness of their Piety gives check to your Malice and in spight of all your outragious Passion against them extorts a more gentle usage if not a secret Love and Veneration But beside that soft Reproofs do but cocker their presumption they would suffer true Goodness to be run down by the violence of Ignorance and Zeal And to think to argue rude and boystrous Zealots out of their folly meerly by the strength of calm and sober Reason is as likely a matter as to endeavour by fair words to perswade the Northern Wind into a Southern Point If you will ever silence them you must be as vehement as they nothing but Zeal can encounter Zeal And he that will oppose the Pharisees must do it with their Eagerness though not their Malice Clamour and Confidence make stronger Impressions upon the common people than strength of Reason and the Rabble ever runs to that Party that raises the biggest noise And therefore seeing we are not so ill-bred as to oppose Clamour to Clamour we must supply our want of Noise and Throat as our Saviour did in his Invectives against the Pharisees by Sharpness and Severity And though there is but little ground to hope that the keenest Reasons should be able to pierce their thick and inveterate prejudices yet however the sharper Edge they have the deeper they will stick in the minds of those whose Concern and Interest it is to punish and correct them For I am not so vain as to design or expect their own Conviction as good attempt the Removal of Mountains as of some mens Scruples And I remember the Italian proverb Chi lava la Testa d'al Asino perde il Sapone And therefore I never proposed to my self any other aim in this following Discourse than by representing the palpable inconsistency of Fanatick Tempers and Principles with the Welfare and security of Government to awaken Authority to beware of its worst and most dangerous Enemies and to force them to that Modesty and Obedience by severity of Laws to which all the strength of Reason in the world can never perswade them When I first resolved upon this Vndertaking the Main Design in my Thoughts was to represent to the World the lamentable Folly and Silliness of these mens Religion aud to shew what pitiful and incompetent Guides of their Actions their own Consciences are and that to leave them to the Government of their own Perswasions is only to deliver them up to be abused by all manner of Vices and Follies and that when they have debaucht their minds with Pride Ignorance Self-love Ambition Peevishness Malice Envy Surliness and Superstition c. they then bestow the Authority and Sacredness of Conscience upon their most violent boisterous and ungovernable passions In brief that their Consciences are seized on by such morose and surly Principles as make them the rudest and most barbarous people in the World and that in comparison of them the most insolent of the Pharisees were Gentlemen and the most savage of the Americans Philosophers But in this Design I found my self happily prevented by a late Learned and ingenious Discourse The Friendly Debate that has unravel'd all their affected Phrases with so much perspicuity of Wit discovered the Feebleness of their beloved Notions with so much Clearness of Reason demonstrated the Wildness of their Practices by so many pregnant and undeniable Testimonies exposed the palpable unwarrantableness of their Schism the shameful Prevarication of their Pretences and utter inconsistency of their Principles with Publick Peace Settlement and in brief so evidently convicted the Leaders in the faction of such inexcusable Knavery and their followers of such a dull and stubborn simplicity that 't is impossible any thing should hold out against so much force of Reason and Demonstration but invincible Impudence and Obstinacy And when men insconce themselves in their own Wills they are there Impregnable Wilfulness is enchanted Armour upon which the sharpest Steel makes no Impression and they are secure from the Power of conviction that are unalterably resolved never to be convinced Otherwise nothing could be more apparent to any man that has but a competent knowledge of the Nature of the things there debated that
them not discover their lamentable rawness and ignorance by laughing at its folly and meanness till they can first prove a base and selfish spirit to be more noble and generous than an universal Love and Charity Pride and Luxury to be more amiable than Sweetness and Ingenuity Revenge and Impatience more honourable than Discretion and Civility Excess and Debauchery more healthful than Temperance and Sobriety to be enslaved to their Lusts and Passions more manly than to live by the Rules of Reason and Prudence Malice and Injustice to be more graceful and becoming a gentile Behaviour than Kindness and Benignity and the horrors of an amazed Spirit to be fuller of Pleasure and Felicity than that Peace and Calmness of Mind that springs from the Reflections of an exact Conscience Till all this and much more is made good that is till all the Maxims of Folly and Wisdom are changed let them be Civil and Modest and not scorn too confidently And though all this could be done yet as for their parts they will be so far from ever performing it that they will never be at the pains of attempting it and if they should 't is God knows too great a work for their little understandings And therefore I appeal to all the wise and sober world Whether they that would make Religion ridiculous are not infinitely so themselves Whether to consute it with Raillery and Bold Iests be not as void of Wit as Reason And whether all the Folly and Madness in the World can equal this of these scoffing Atheists And thus having scourged their Ignorance and Presumption with severity enough I shall forbear either to expose them for their Pedantry or to lash them for their rudeness and ill manners though what can be more pedantick than to be so big with every little Conceit as to be in labour to vent it in every Company And a pert School-boy is scarce more troublesome with a petty Criticism against Mr. Lilly than these truantly Youths are with any singular Exception that they have picked up against the Holy Scriptures They cannot meet with a person of any Reputation for Learning but they must be pecking at him with their Objections and if he slight their impertinent Pratings as all discreet men do then the next time they meet their Dear Hearts with what triumphant shrugs do they boast their success against the man in Black and so laugh and drink themselves into Confidence and Folly And then as for their want of manners what deportment can be more course and clownish than to affect to be offensive to all discreet men and to delight to loath and nauseate all Civil Company with the filthiness of their Discourse A behaviour more irkesom to a Gentleman of any Breeding and Civility than the Buffoonry of Hostlers and Porters They can scarce meet with a Clergy-man but they must be pelting him with Oaths or Ribaldry or Atheistical Drollery i. e. they study to annoy him with such Discourse as he is obliged though he were inwardly as great a Villain as themselves to detest by his Place and Profession a piece of Breeding much like his that would have refused to entertain a Vestal with any other Discourse than by describing the Rites of Priapus or the lascivious Arts of Cleopatra And so I leave them to the Correction of the Publick Rods and 't is high time that Authority check and chastise the Wantonness of this Boyish humour For the Infection spreads and grows fashionable and creeps out of Cities into Villages To Impeach Religion is become the first exercise of Wit in which young Gentlemen are to be Disciplined and Atheism is the only knowledge and accomplishment they gain by a gentile Education and they have nothing to make them fancy themselves more witty and refined People than illiterate Peasants and Mechanicks but a readiness and pregnancy to rally upon Religion and he is a raw Youth and smells rank of his Grandame and his Catechism that cannot resolve all the Articles of his Faith into the Cheats and Impostures of Priests And thus they live here till they have sinned or fooled away all sense of Honour and Conscience and so return home useless and unserviceable to their Countrey and if they turn Sots they may prove less dangerous but if not they are prepared for any designs of Mischief and Publick Disturbance For at the same time they shake hands with Religion they bid adieu to Loyalty in that whilst they own no tyes of Conscience they know no honesty but advantage and Interest is the only endearment of their Duty to their Prince and therefore when-ever this happens to run counter to their Loyalty 't is then the strongest and most effectual inducement to any attempts of Treason and Rebellion And thus they may prove good Subjects as Rogues and Out-laws are who will be honest when 't is their Interest but when 't is not then any thing is their Duty that contributes to their Security And with these men in all Civil Wars and Dissentions of State the strongest side has always the justest Cause and if Rebels prove successful against their Lawful Prince they gain their Assistance And to these Principles we must ascribe the unhappy success of the late Rebellion the silly and well meaning Zealots were only abused by sly and crafty Incendiaries for the compassing of their own ambitious ends and by their Councils only was the Cause managed advanced and finished till they raised their own Fortunes upon the Ruines of the Royal Interest and establish'd themselves in the Royal Power and Dignity And though the men and their Designs are perished yet their Principles thrive and propagate and 't is strange yet easie to observe how the contempt of Religion works men into a dislike of Monarchy and I scarce ever met with any zealous Common-wealths-man whom I could not easily discover to have more of the Atheist than the Politician in brief all men of this Perswasion are so far from being inclined to love their Prince that they are engaged by their very Principles to hate the Vsurper For take away the Divine Institution of Government and the Obligations of Conscience to Obedience and then all Government is Vsurpation and all sense of Obedience Folly and Princes have no other Right to their Crowns but what is founded upon Force and Violence their Empire was first gain'd by Wars Butcheries and Massacres their Diadems hang upon their Swords and their Thrones stand deep in Humane Blood and all Kingdoms are nothing but Societies of Slaves and Tyrants and if any Subject can set himself free from his Sovereigns Oppression he is the braver man and when he can win his Crown he deserves to wear it And there is no man that laughs at the Folly of Religion who is not angry at the Superstition of Government And therefore I leave it to Authority to consider how much it concerns them to restrain the Insolence of this wanton Humour and to
Instruments of Morality Of the Villany of those mens Religion that are wont to distinguish between Grace and Virtue They exchange the substance of true Goodness for meer Metaphors and Allegories Metaphors the only cause of our present Schism and the only ground of the different Subdivisions among the Schismaticks themselves The Vnaccountableness of Mens Conceits That when the main Ends and Designs of Religion are undoubtedly subject to the Supreme Power they should be so eager to exempt its Means and Circumstances from the same Authority The Civil Magistrate may determine new Instances of Virtue how much more new Circumstances of Worship As he may enjoyn any thing in Morality that contradicts not the ends of Morality so may be in Religious Worship if he oppose not its design He may command any thing in the Worship of God that does not tend to debauch Mens practices or their conceptions of the Deity All the subordinate Duties both of Morality and Religious Worship are equally subject to the Determinations of Humane Authority § 1. HAving in the former Chapter sufficiently made out my first Proposition viz. That 't is absolutely necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Common-wealth should be vested with a Power to govern the Consciences of Subjects in Affairs of Religion I now proceed to the proof of the second thing proposed viz. That those who would deprive the Supreme Civil Power of its Authority in reference to the Conduct of the Worship of God are forced to allow it in other more material parts of Religion though they are both liable to the same Inconveniences and Objections Where I shall have a fair opportunity to state the true extent of the Magistrates Power over Conscience in reference to Divine Worship by shewing it to be the same with his Power over Conscience in matters of Morality and all other Affairs of Religion And here it strikes me with wonder and amazement to consider That men should be so shy of granting the Supreme Magistrate a Power over their Consciences in the Rituals and External Circumstances of Religious Worship and yet be so free of forcing it upon him in the Essential Duties of Morality which are at least as great and material Parts of Religion as pleasing to God and as indispensably necessary to Salvation as any way of Worship in the World The Precepts of the Moral Law are both perfective of our own Natures and conducive to the Happiness of others and the Practice of Vertue consists in living suitably to the Dictates of Reason Nature And this is the substance and main Design of all the Laws of Religion to oblige Mankind to behave themselvs in all their actions as becomes Creatures endued with Reason and Understanding and in ways suitable to Rational Beings to prepare and qualifie themselves for the state of Glory and Immortality And as this is the proper End of all Religion That Mankind might live happily here and happily hereafter so to this end nothing contributes more than the practice of all Moral Vertues which will effectually preserve the Peace and Happiness of Humane Societies and advance the Mind of Man to a nearer approach to the Perfection of the Divine Nature every particular Vertue being therefore such because 't is a Resemblance and Imitation of some of the Divine Attributes So that Moral Vertue having the strongest and most necessary influence upon the End of all Religion viz. Mans Happiness 't is not only its most material and useful Part but the ultimate End of all its other Duties And all true Religion can consist in nothing else but either the Practice of Vertue it self or the use of those Means and Instruments that contribute to it § 2. And this beside the Rational Account of the thing it self appears with an undeniable evidence from the best of Demonstrations i. e. an Induction of all Particulars The whole Duty of Man refers either to his Creator or his Neighbour or himself All that concerns the two last is confessedly of a Moral Nature and all that concerns the first consists either in Praising of God or Praying to him The former is a Branch of the Vertue of Gratitude and is nothing but a thankful and humble temper of mind arising from a sense of Gods Greatness in himself and his Goodness to us so that this part of Devotion issues from the same virtuous quality that is the Principle of all other Resentments and Expressions of Gratitude only those Acts of it that are terminated on God as their Object are styled Religious and therefore Gratitude and Devotion are not divers Things but only different Names of the same Thing Devotion being nothing else but the Virtue of Gratitude towards God The latter viz. Prayer is either put up in our own or other mens behalfs If for others 't is an Act of that Virtue we call Kindness or Charity If for our selves the things we pray for unless they be the Comforts and Enjoyments of this life are some or other virtuous Qualities and therefore the proper and direct use of Prayer is to be instrumental to the Virtues of Morality So that all Duties of Devotion excepting only our returns of Gratitude are not Essential parts of Religion but are only in order to it as they tend to the Practice of Virtue and moral Goodness and their Goodness is derived upon them from the moral Virtues to which they contribute and in the same proportion they are conducive to the ends of Virtue they are to be valued among the Ministeries of Religion All Religion then I mean the Practical Part is either Virtue it self or some of its Instruments and the whole Duty of man consists in being Virtuous and all that is enjoin'd him beside is in order to it And what else do we find enforc'd and recommended in our Saviour's Sermons beside heights of Morality What does St. Paul discourse of to Felix but moral matters Righteousness and Temperance and Iudgment to come And what is it that men set up against Morality but a few figurative Expressions of it self that without it are utterly insignificant 'T is not enough say they to be completely Virtuous unless we have Grace too But when we have set aside all manner of Virtue let them tell me what remains to be call'd Grace and give me any Notion of it distinct from all Morality that consists in the right order and government of our Actions in all our Relations and so comprehends all our Duty and therefore if Grace be not included in it 't is but a Phantasm and an Imaginary thing So that if we strip those Definitions that some men of late have bestowed upon it of Metaphors and Allegories it will plainly signifie nothing but a vertuous temper of mind and all that the Scripture intends by the Graces of the Spirit are only Vertuous Qualities of the Soul that are therefore styled Graces because they were derived purely from Gods
an absolute and indispensable Necessity and others of a Transient and changeable Obligation Thus 't is absolutely necessary every Rational Creature should make returns of Gratitude to its Creator from which no Humane Power can restrain it but then for the outward Expressions and Significations of this Duty they are for the most part Good or Evil according to the Customs and Constitutions of different Nations unless in the two forementioned Cases that they either countenance Vice or disgrace the Deity But as for all other Rituals Ceremonies Postures manners of performing the outward Expressions of Devotion that are not chargeable with one or both of these nothing can hinder their being capable of being adopted into the Ministeries of Divine Service or exempt them from being subject to the Determinations of Humane Power And thus the Parallel holds in all Cases between the Secondary and Emergent Laws of Morality and the Subordinate and Instrumental Rules of Worship they both equally pass an Obligation upon all men to whom they are prescribed unless they directly contradict the ends of their Institution And now from this more general Consideration of the Agreement between matters of meer Worship and other Duties of Morality in reference to the Power of the Civil Magistrate we may proceed by some more particular accounts to discover how his Dominion over both is of equal extent and restrain'd within the same bounds and measures and that in what cases soever he may exercise Jurisdiction over Conscience in matters of Morality in all the same he may exercise the same Power in Concerns of Religious Worship and on the contrary in what cases his Power over matters of Religion is restrain'd in all the same is it limited as to things of a Moral Nature Whence it must appear with a clear and irresistible Evidence That mens right to Liberty of Conscience is the same in both to all Cases Niceties and Circumstances of things and that they may as rationally challenge a freedom from the Laws of Justice as from those of Religion and that to grant it in either is equally destructive of all Order and Government and equally tends to reduce all Societies to Anarchy and Confusion CHAP. III. A more Particular State of the Controversie concerning the Inward Actions of the Mind or Matters of meer Conscience The Contents MAnkind have a Liberty of Conscience over all their Actions whether Moral or strictly Religious as far as it concerns their Iudgments but not their Practices Of the Nature of Christian Liberty It relates to our Thoughts and not to our Actions It may be preserved inviolable under outward Restraints Christian Liberty consists properly in the Restauration of the Mind of Man to its Natural priviledge from the Yoke of the Ceremonial Law The substantial part of Religious Worship is internal and out of the reach of the Civil Magistrate External Worship is no part of Religion It is and must be left undetermined by the Law of God Sacrifices the most antient Expressions of Outward Worship were purely of Humane Institution Though their being expiatory depended upon a positive Law of God yet their most proper and original Vse viz. To express the Significations of a Grateful Mind depended on the Wills of Men. Of their first Original among the Heathens The Reason why God prescribed the particular Rites and Ceremonies of outward Worship to the Iews Vnder the Christian Dispensation he has left the disposal of outward Worship to the power and discretion of the Church The Impertinency of mens Clamours against Significant Ceremonies when 't is the only use of Ceremonies to be significant The Signification of all Ceremonies equally Arbitrary The Signification of Ceremonies is of the same Nature with that of Words And men may as well be offended at the one as the other § 1. FIrst then Let all matters of meer Conscience whether purely Moral or Religious be subject to Conscience meerly i. e. Let men think of things according to their own perswasions and assert the Freedom of their Judgments against all the Powers of the Earth This is the Prerogative of the Mind of Man within its own Dominion its Kingdom is intellectual and seated in the thoughts not Actions of Men and therefore no Humane Power does or can prescribe to any mans Opinions and secret Thoughts but men will think as they please in spight of all their Decrees and the Understanding will remain free when every thing else is bound And this Sovereignty of Conscience is no entrenchment upon that of Princes because 't is concern'd only in such matters as are of a quite different Nature from their Affairs and gives no restraint to their commanding Power over the Actions of men for meer Opinion whilst such has no Influence upon the Good or Evil of Humane Society that is the proper object of Government and therefore as long as our Thoughts are secret and lock'd up within our own Breasts they are out of the reach of all Humane Power But as for matters that are not confined within the Territories of meer Conscience but come forth into outward Action and appear in the Societies of men there is no remedy but they must be subject to the Cognizance of Humane Laws and come within the Verge of Humane Power because by these Societies subsist and humane Affairs are transacted And therefore it concerns those whose Office it is to secure the peace and tranquillity of mankind to govern and manage them in order to the Publick Good So that 't is but a vain and frivolous pretence when men plead with so much noise and clamour for the Sacred and Inviolable Rights of Conscience and apparently invade or infringe the Magistrates Power by submitting its Commands to the Authority of every Subjects Conscience because the Commands of Lawful Authority are so far from invading its proper Liberty that they cannot reach it in that 't is seated in that part of Man of whose Transactions the Civil Power can take no Cognizance All Humane Authority and Jurisdiction extends no farther than mens outward Actions these are the proper Object of all their Laws Whereas Liberty of Conscience is Internal and Invisible and confined to the minds and Judgments 〈◊〉 men and whilst Conscience acts within its proper Sphere that Civil Power is so far from doing it violence that it never can But when this great and imperious Faculty passes beyond its own peculiar Bounds and would invade the Magistrates Authority by exercising an unaccountable Dominion within his Territories or by venting such Wild Opinions among his Subjects as he apprehends to tend to the disturbance of the Publick Peace then does it concern him to give check to its proceedings as much as to all other Invasions for the care of the Publick Good being his Duty as well as Interest it cannot but be in his Power to restrain or permit Actions as they are conducible to that End Mankind therefore have the same Natural Right to Liberty of
Conscience in matters of Religious Worship as in Affairs of Justice and Honesty i. e. a Liberty of Iudgment but not of practice they have an inviolable freedom to examine the Goodness of all Laws Moral and Ecclesiastical and to judge of them by their suitableness to the natural Reasons of Good and Evil but as for the Practice and all outward Actions either of Virtue or Devotion they are equally governable by the Laws and Constitutions of Common-wealths and men may with the same pretences of Reason challenge an Exemption from all Humane Laws in Matters of common Honesty upon the score of the Freedom of their Consciences as they plead a liberty from all Authority in Duties of Religious Worship upon the same account because they have a freedom of Judgment in both but of Practice in neither § 2. And upon the reasonableness of this Principle is founded the Duty or rather Priviledge of Christian Liberty viz. To assert the Freedom of the Mind of Man as far as 't is not inconsistent with the Government of the World in that a sincere and impartial use of our own Understandings is the first and Fundamental Duty of Humane Nature Hence it is that the Divine Providence is so highly solicitous not to have it farther restrained than needs must and therefore in all matters of pure Speculation it leaves the mind of Man entirely free to judge of the Truth and Falshood of things and will not suffer it to be usurp'd upon by any Authority whatsoever And whatsoever Opinion any man entertains of things of this Nature he injures no man by it and therefore no man can have any reason to commence any Quarrel with him for it Every man here judges for himself and not for others and matters of meer Opinion having no reference to the Publick there is no need of any Publick Judgment to determine them But as for those Actions that are capable of having any Influence upon the Publick Good or ill of Mankind though they are liable to the Determinations of the Publick Laws yet the Law of God will not suffer them to be determin'd farther than is requisite to the Ends of Government And in those very things in which it has granted the Civil Magistrate a Power over the Practices of men it permits them not to exercise any Authority over their Judgments but leaves them utterly free to judge of them as far as they are Objects of meer Opinion and relate not to the Common Interest of mankind And hence though the Commands of our Lawful Superiours may change Indifferent things into Necessary Duties yet they cannot restrain the Liberty of our Minds from judging things thus determin'd to remain in their own Nature Indifferent and the Reason of our Obligation to do them is not fetcht from any Antecedent Necessity in themselves but from the Supervening Commands of Authority to which Obedience in all things Lawful is a Necessary Duty So that Christian Liberty or the Inward Freedom of our Judgments may be preserved inviolable under the Restraints of the Civil Magistrate which are Outward and concern only the Actions not Judgments of men because the Outward Determination to one Particular rather than another does not abrogate the Inward Indifferency of the thing it self and the Duty of our Acting according to the Laws arises not from any Opinion of the Necessity of the thing it self but either from some Emergent and Changeable Circumstances of Order and Decency or from a sense of the Absolute Indispensableness of the Duty of Obedience Therefore the whole Affair of Christian Liberty relates only to our Inward Judgment of things and provided this be kept inviolate it matters not as to that Concern what Restraints are laid upon our Cutward Actions In that though the Gospel has freed our Consciences from the Power of things yet it has not from that of Government we are free from the matter but not from the Authority of Humane Laws and as long as we obey the Determinations of our Superiours with an Opinion of the Indifferency of the things themselves we retain the Power of our Christian Liberty and are still free as to the matter of the Law though not as to the Duty of Obedience § 3. Neither is this Prerogative of our Christian Liberty so much any new Favour granted in the Gospel as the Restauration of the mind of Man to its Natural Priviledge by Exempting us from the Yoke of the Ceremonial Law whereby things in themselves indifferent were tied upon the Conscience with as indispensable an Obligation as the Rules of Essential Goodness Equity during the whole Period of the Mosaick Dispensation which being Cancell'd by the Gospel those Indifferent things that had been made necessary by a Divine positive Command return'd to their own Nature to be used or omitted only as occasion should direct And upon this Account was it that St. Paul though he were so earnest an Assertor of his Christian Liberty against the Doctrine of the Necessity of Jewish Ceremonies never scrupled to use them when ever he thought it serviceable to the Interests of Christianity as is apparent in his Circumcision of Timothy to which he would never have condescended out of Observation of the Mosaick Law and yet did not in the least scruple to do it for other Purposes as Prudence and Discretion should direct him And though in his Discourses of Christian Liberty he Instances only in Circumcision Meats and Drinks and other Ceremonial Ordinances which were then the Particulars most in Dispute between the Christians and the Jews yet by the clearest Analogy of Reason the Case is the same as to the Judicial Law and all other things commanded by Moses that were not either Rules of Eternal Goodness or expresly establish'd in the Gospel This being its clearest and most important Design to reprieve Mankind from all the burdensome and Arbitrary Impositions of Moses that were scarce capable of any other Goodness than their being Instances of Obedience and to restore us to such a Religion as was most suitable to the perfection of Humane Nature and to tye no other Laws upon us than such whose Natural and Intrinsick Goodness should carry with them their own Eternal Obligation And therefore whatsoever our Superiours impose upon us whether in Matters of Religious Worship or any other Duties of Morality it neither is nor can be any entrenchment upon our Christian Liberty provided it be not imposed with an Opinion of the Antecedent Necessity of the thing it self § 4. Now the Design of what I have discoursed upon this Article of Christian Liberty is not barely to shew the manifest Impertinency of all those little Objections men force from it against the Civil Magistrates Jurisdiction over the outward Concerns of Religion whereas this relates entirely to things of a quite different Nature and is only concern'd in the inward Actions of the Mind but withal my purpose is mainly by exempting all internal Acts of the Soul from
allows and what it allows is not unlawful and what is not unlawful may lawfully be done and therefore it must needs be our Duty to conform to all circumstances of Worship that are determined by lawful Authority if they are not antecedently forbidden by the Law of God though they are not commanded Things that are not determined remain indifferent what is indifferent is lawful and what is lawful the Magistrate may lawfully command and if it be sinful to obey him in these things 't is so to obey him at all for all things are either lawful or unlawful 't is a sin to obey him in things unlawful and if it be so in things lawful too then is all obedience sinful § 6. Fifthly When they tell us That the Civil Magistrate is indeed to see to the execution of the Laws of Christ but to make none of his own 't is a distinction without a difference for if he may provide for the execution of the Laws of Religion then may he make Laws that they shall be executed this being the most proper and effectual means to promote their execution so that nothing can be more vain than to deny the Civil Magistrate a power of making Laws in Religion and yet to allow him an Authority to see the Laws of Religion executed because that is so apparently implyed in this in that whoever has a power to see that Laws be executed cannot be without a power to command their execution Especially if we consider the particular Nature of the Laws of Christ that they have only determined the substance and Morality of religious Worship and therefore must needs have left the ordering of its circumstances to the power and wisdom of lawful Authority whatever they determine about them is but in order to the execution of the Laws of God in that whatever they enjoyn cannot be put in practice without being clothed with some particular circumstances and reduced to some particular Cases Thus when the Holy Apostle sets us down a general Rule that all things be done in order and decency without determining what the things are that are conducive to it the determination of this Rule when 't is reduced to practice must be entirely left to the Government of the Church that must judge what things are decent and orderly and what Laws it establishes in order to it though they are but further pursuances of the Apostolical Precept yet are they new and distinct Commands by themselves and injoyn something that the Scripture no where commands So that the Divine Laws being general and general Laws not being to be put in Execution but in particular Cases and Instances he that has Authority to look to the Execution of these general Laws must withal be vested with a Power to determine with what particular Instances Cases and Circumstances they shall be put in Practice and Execution And here when they tell us that it cannot stand with the Love and Wisdom of God not to take order himself for all things that immediately concern his own Worship and Kingdom and that if Iesus Christ has not determined all particular Rites and Circumstances of Religion he has discharged his office with less wisdom and fidelity than Moses who ordered every thing appertaining to the Worship of God even as far as the Pins and Nails of the Tabernacle with divers others the like idle and impertinent reasonings One would think that men who argue at this rate had already at least discovered in the Holy Scriptures a complete Form of Religious Worship as to all particular Rites and Ceremonies of an eternal universal and unchangeable obligation and therefore till they can believe this themselves and prove it to others instead of returning solemn Answers to such baffled and intolerable Impertinencies I shall only advise them to consider the unlucky consequents of their way of arguing when instead of producing a particular Form of Publick Worship prescribed by God himself they with their wonted modesty prove he ought to have done it and that unless he has done it he has been defective in his Care Providence over his Church For what can the Issue of this be but that God is chargeable with want of Wisdom or Goodness or with some other Defect even by certain and infallible Experience For if he has not determined every particular Circumstance of Worship then he must stand charged with all the absurdities they object against their being left undetermined and therefore if no such prescribed form can be produced as 't is infinitely certain none ever can then let them consider what follows So unhappy a thing is it when men will needs be disputing against Experience whose Evidence is so powerful and forcible upon the minds of men that Demonstration it self is not strong enough to cope with it How much less the weak and puny Arguments wherewith these men assault it Sect. 7. Sixthly There is no particular Action but what is capable of a strange and unaccountable variety of Circumstances nor any part of outward Worship but may be done after a thousand different Modes and Fashions in that as every action is clothed with natural and emergent Circumstances so is every Circumstance with its Circumstances every one of which may be modified in sundry ways and manners And therefore in this infinite variety of things the Laws of God prescribe only the general Lines of Duty and rarely descend to their particular Determinations but leave them to be determined by Prudence and Discretion by Choice and Custom by Laws and Prescriptions and by all those ways by which Humane Affairs are governed and transacted Thus for example The Divine Law has made Charity a standing and eternal Duty but has left its particular way of expression undetermined and uncommanded and 't is indifferent whether it be done by building of Colledges or Churches or Hospitals by repairing of Bridges or Rivers or High-ways by redeeming of Slaves and Prisoners by hospitality to the Poor or Provision for Orphans or by any other way of Publick or Private Bounty and when a man 's own thoughts have determined his own choice to one or more of these Particulars even that is vested with a strange number of Accidents and Circumstances which must of necessity be left entirely to the conduct of his own Reason and Discretion And the case is the same as in all other Duties of Moral Virtue so in that of religious gratitude or Divine Worship this Duty it self is of a natural and essential necessity but yet may and must be performed with an unconceivable variety of Dresses Customs and ways of Expression that are left utterly free and undetermined in Scripture any of which may be decently used provided they do not make debasing representations of God wherein consists the proper folly of Idolatry and Superstition And all the advantages of Order and Solemnity wherewith Religion may be prudently adorned are not only lawful but decent although they are not warranted by
undetermined but because every action must be done some way or other and be vested with some Circumstances or other and because the generality of men are not so apt to be abused with fantastick and ridiculous conceits in any thing as in matters of Religion therefore we think it necessary for the prevention of all the follies indecencies that ignorance and superstitious Zeal would introduce into the Worship of God That the Publick Laws should determine some Circumstances of Order and Decency which have at least this Advantage that they provide against the mischiefs of Disorder and Confusion and therefore we place no antecedent necessity in any of the particular Rites and Ceremonies of our Church but only think it highly convenient if not absolutely necessary that some be prescribed that there is an handsomness and beauty in these that are prescribed and therefore because 't is necessary that some be determined and because these are rather than divers others already settled we think they have an indispensable necessity superinduced upon them consequent to the determinations of Authority No man affirms That we cannot serve God acceptably without a Surplice but yet because 't is but requisite that Publick Worship should be performed with beauty and solemnity and because the use of this Vestment is but handsom and beautiful and prevents slovenliness and indecency 't is but agreeable that it should be injoin'd as any other decent Habit might have been and when this is singled out by Authority it then becomes consequentially necessary Whereas those who forbid things indifferent as sinful and lay obligations upon mens Consciences to abstain from what is innocent and make that necessary not to be done which God has left at liberty and made lawful to be done usurp upon mens Consciences by imposing Fetters on them where God has left them free and become guilty of the most palpable piece of Superstition by teaching their own Prohibitions for Doctrines and so making it a necessary Duty and part of Divine Worship to abstain from what God has no where forbidden and making it a mortal and damnable Sin to do what is innocent and supposing that God will or at least justly may inflict eternal Torments upon men for making their Addresses to him rather in a cleanly White Vestment than in a Taylors Cloak or perhaps in Mechanical Querpo Sect. II. And then as for their out-cry against Will-worship 't is the very same with that against Superstition for 't is one sort of it and is criminal no farther than 't is superstitious Now when they exclaim against Superstition they mean only that part of it that consists in Will-worship and when against Will-worship 't is only as 't is a Branch of Superstition So that these two impertinent Clamours signifie but the same thing under different Denominations and so amount but to one But however this is 't is certain that Will-worship consists in nothing else than in mens making their own fancies and inventions necessary parts of Religion whereby they make that requisite to procure the Divine acceptance that God has no where required and 't is the same thing whether this be done by Injunctions or Prohibitions and they that affirm the doing or not doing of an Action which God has no where either commanded or forbidden to be necessary Duties are equally guilty of this Crime And therefore if these men make it necessary to forbear what God has no where forbidden they teach their own fancies for Doctrines and impose something as a part of the service of God on their own and other mens Consciences that the Law of God has not imposed and withal so unworthily mis-represent the Divine Wisdom and Goodness as to labour to make the world believe That God has such an abhorrency to a thing so innocent as a White Garment That to worship him in it is sufficient to bring us under his everlasting Wrath and Displeasure for every thing that is sinful is as well in their as our esteem mortal damnable But then as for our own parts they cannot be more apparently guilty of this piece of folly then we are clear and innocent from its very suspicion because all Rituals and Ceremonies and Postures and manners of performing the outward Expressions of Devotion are not in their own nature capable of being parts of Religion and therefore unless we used and imposed them as such 't is lamentably precarious to charge the determination of them with Will-worship because that consists in making those things Parts of Religion that God has not made so So that when the Church expresly declares against this use of them and only injoins them as meer Circumstances of Religious Worship 't is apparent that it cannot by imposing them make any additions to the Worship of God but only provides That what God has required be performed in a decent and orderly manner Sect. 12. And then as for Christian Liberty Why should we suffer them so far to invade ours as to renounce those things as criminal which we believe to be innocent And if things indifferent when injoin'd lose not only their liberty but their lawfulness then why not when forbidden and that by an incompetent Authority when our Superiours impose Rules of Decency and Law of Discipline they do not infringe our Christian Liberty because they do not abolish the indifferency of things themselves wherein alone it consisteth and though they become thereby necessary Duties 't is not from the nature and necessity of the thing it self but from the Obligations of Obedience or some emergent Reasons of Order and Decency whereas nothing can be more plain than that these men do not only abridge our Liberty but also lay insolent confinements upon the Supreme Power by making things indifferent so absolutely unlawful that they will not allow the just Commands of lawful Authority sufficient to make them cease to be sinful How oft and how plainly have they been told that when Authority injoins things left indifferent and undetermined by the Word of God 't is so far from incroaching upon our Christian Liberty that it rather confirms it In that this supposes that the things themselves may or may not be either done or enjoined according to the dictates of Prudence and Discretion but when they are once determined by publick Laws though the matter of the Law be indifferent yet Obedience to it is not Whereas when they will not permit their Governours to injoin these things and if they do will not obey their injunctions do they not apparently intrench upon our Liberty by making what Christ has left indifferent necessary and under pretences of asserting their Christian Liberty take upon them to confine the rights of Authority But to all this as evident as it is nothing can make them attend but they still deafly proceed in their old Clamours which is too clear an Argument that 't is not Reason that dictates their Exceptions but humour prejudice and peevishness Sect. 13.
convincing them at least of the possibility of their being deceived reduce them to a more humble and governable temper Why do they not teach them in plain terms that the establish'd way of Worship is lawful and innocent and therefore that they ought not to forsake it to the disturbance of the Church and contempt of Authority If they would but make it part of their business to undeceive the people how easily would all their stragling Followers return into the Communion of the Church But they dare not let them know their Errours lest they should forfeit both their Party and their Reputation And therefore instead of that they rather confirm them in their mistakes and in their own defence are forced to perswade them that they ought to be scandalized Insomuch that it is not unusual to hear the foolish people pretend it concerning themselves and to tell you that your action is a Scandal to them By which they mean either that it leads them into sin or that it makes them angry If the former that is a ridiculous contradiction for if they know how the snare and temptation is laid then they know how to escape it my action does not force them into the sin but only invites them to it through their own mistake and folly And therefore if they have discovered by what mistake they are likely to be betray'd they know how to provide against the danger For if they know their duty in the case how can they plead Scandal when that supposes ignorance And however I behave my self they know what they have to do themselves If they do not How can they say of themselves that they are scandalized when by so saying they confess they are not For that implies a knowledge how to do their duty and avoid the danger If the latter i. e. that they are angry then all their meaning is that I must part with my liberty and disobey my Superiors to please them that their saucy humour must give me Law that I must be their Slave because they are proud and insolent and that they must gain a power over me because they are forward to censure mine actions § 7. Thirdly We encounter Scandal with Scandal and let the guilt of all be discharged upon that side that occasions the most and the greatest offences Now all the mischief they can pretend to ensue in the present constitution of affairs upon their compliance with Authority reaches no farther than the weak Brethren of their own Party whereas by their refractory disobedience they give offence not only to them but to all both to the Jew and to the Gentile and to the Church of God And not to insist upon the advantages they give to Atheism and Popery let me only mind them that if the accidental offence of the Judgments of some well-meaning but less knowing Christians of a private capacity pass a sufficient obligation upon Conscience to restrain it from any practice in it self lawful of how much more force must that scandal be that is given to publick Authority by denying obedience to its lawful commands and by consequence infringing its just power in things not forbidden by any divine Law Now if the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England were in themselves apparently evil then their repugnancy to the Law of God were sufficient Objection both against their practice and their imposition and their scandal to weak and ignorant Christians were of small force in comparison to their intrinsick and unalterable unlawfulness But because this is not pretended in our present case What a shameful scandal and reproach to Religion is it to neglect the necessary duty of Obedience and subjection to lawful Authority under pretence of complyance with the weak and groundless scruples of some private men 'T is certainly past dispute that the reasonable offence of some weaker Brethren cannot so strongly oblige our Consciences as the indispensable command of obeying our lawful Superiors And it is a shame to demand Whether the Judgment of a lawful Magistrate have not more force and power over Conscience than the Judgment of every private Christian If not then may the Laws of Authority be cancell'd and controul'd by the folly and ignorance of those that are subject to them for meer scandal arises only from the folly and ignorance of the persons offended For if there be any just and wise occasion of dislike the action becomes primarily unlawful not because 't is scandalous but because 't is antecedently evil whereas meer and proper scandal is only concern'd in things in themselves indifferent So that in this case all the difficulty is Whether is the greater scandal to do an indifferent thing when a private Christian dislikes it or not to do it when publick Authority enjoyns it And certainly it can be no Controversie Whether it be a fouler reproach to Religion to disobey a Christian Magistrate in a thing lawful and indifferent than to offend a private Christian. And I may safely appeal to the Judgment of all wise and sober men Whether the intolerable waywardness of some nice and squeamish Consciences to the commands of just Authority be not a fouler and more notorious scandal to Religion than a modest and humble compliance with them though in things not so apparently useful and necessary And then as for their own weak Brethren of whom they seem so exceedingly tender they can no way more scandalize them than by complying with them By which they are tempted and betray'd into the greatest and most mischievous enormities for thereby they encourage their folly feed and cherish their ungrounded fancies confirm them in a false opinion of the unlawfulness of their Superiors commands and so lead them directly into the sins of unwarrantable Schism and Disobedience How many feeble and deluded Souls are enticed by the reputation of their example to violate the commands of Authority and that when themselves are not convinced of their unlawfulness and so entangle themselves in a complicated sin by disobeying their lawful Superiors and that with a doubtful and unsatisfied Conscience They cannot be ignorant that the greatest part of their zealous Disciples are offended at the Laws and Constitutions of the Church for no other reason than because they see their godly Ministers to slight them and therefore unless their example be sufficient to rescind the lawful Commands of their Governors they give them the most criminal Scandal by inviting them to the most criminal disobedience So that all circumstances fairly considered the avoiding of offences will prove the most effectual inducement to Conformity For this would take away the very Grounds and Foundations of Scandal remove all our differences prevent much trouble and more sin cure all our Schisms Quarrels and Divisions banish our mutual Jealousies Censures and Animosities and establish the Nation in a firm and lasting Peace In brief the only cause of all our troubles and disturbances is the inflexible perversness of about an hundred
any Wars are commenced upon just and warrantable grounds And yet how few are they that take upon them to judge their lawfulness All men here think their Princes command a sufficient warrant to serve him and satisfie themselves in this that in case the cause prove to be unjust the fault liesentirely upon him that commands and not at all on him who has nothing to do but obey And if it were otherwise that no Subject were bound to take up Arms till himself had approved the justness of the cause Commonwealths must be bravely secured and their safety must lie at the mercy of every humorsome and pragmatical Fellow And yet to this piece of arrogance do men tempt themselves when they affect to be thought more godly than their Neighbors It is a gallant thing to understand Religion better than their Superiors and to pity their ignorance in the great Mysteries of the Gospel and by seeming to compassionate their weakness to despise their Authority But if Princes will suffer themselves to be controul'd by the pride and insolence of these contentious Zealots they do but tempt them to slight both their persons and their Government and if they will endure to be checked in their Laws Spiritual and Government of the Church by every Systematical Theologue and most not to say the best of our Adversaries are little better they may as well bear to see themselves affronted in their Laws Civil and Government of the State by every Village-Attorney and Solicitor Well then all men that are in a state of Government are bound in all matters doubtful and disputable to submit the dictates of Private Conscience to the determinations of Publick Authority Nor does this oblige any man to act against the dictates of his own Conscience but only by altering the case alters his perswasions i.e. though every man considered absolutely and by himself be bound to follow his own private judgment yet when he is considered as the member of a Society then must be govern'd then he must of necessity be bound to submit his own private thoughts to publick determinations And it is the dictate of every mans Conscience that is not turbulent and seditious that it ought in all things that are not of a great apparent necessity whatever its own private judgment of them is to acquiesce in the determinations of its Governors in order to publick peace and unity For unless this be done there can be nothing but eternal disorders and confusions in the Church in that it is utterly impossible that all men should have the same apprehensions of things and considering the tempers and passions of mankind as impossible that they should not pursue their differences and controversies with too much heat vehemence And therefore unless whatever their own judgments and apprehensions be they are bound in all such cases to acquiesce in the decisions and determinations of the Governors of the Church or Common-wealth in order to its peace and setlement there can be no possible way of avoiding endless squabbles and confusions And unless this be a fundamental Rule dictate of every mans Conscience that as he is bound in all doubtful cases to follow the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the best result of his own private perswasions where he neither has nor is obliged to have any other guide or rule of his actions so he is bound to forego them all provided his plain and necessary duty be secured out of obedience to Authority and in order to the due Government of the Society there never can be any peace or setlement in any Church or Common-wealth in the world And every Conscience that is not thus perswaded is upon that account to be reckoned as seditious and unpeaceable and so to be treated accordingly Sect. 7. He that with an implicite Faith and confidence resigns up his own Reason to any Superior on earth in all things is a Fool and he is as great a Fool to say no worse that will do it in nothing For as all men are immediately subject to God alone in matters of indispensable duty that are not at all concern'd in our present dispute so are they in all other things to condescend to the Decrees and determinations of their lawful Superiors Neither is this to put men upon that supream Folly of renouncing the use and guidance of their own Reasons out of obedience to any mans infallibility For by Reason we mean nothing but the mind of man making use of the wisest and most prudential methods to guid it self in all its actions and therefore it is not confined to any sort of Maxims and Principles in Philosophy but it extends it self to any knowledge that may be gained by Prudence Experience and Observation And hence right Reason when it is imploy'd about the actions of men is nothing else but Prudence and Discretion Now the Reason of any wise and sober man will tell him that it is most Prudent Discreet and Reasonable to forego his own private perswasions in things doubtful and disputable out of obedience to his lawful Superiours because without this the World can never be governed And supposing mens judgments and understandings to be never so much above the Iurisdiction of all Humane Authority and that no man can be bound to submit his Reason to any thing but the Commands of God yet every man ows at least so much civility to the will of his Prince and the peace of his Country as to bring himself to a compliance and submission to the Publick Judgment rather than to disturb the Publick Peace for the gratification of his own Fancy and Opinion Which is no enslaving of his Reason to any mans usurpation over his Faith and Conscience but only a bringing it to a modest compliance in order to the common interests of Humane Society And if it be not a duty of subjection yet it is one of peaceableness and if it be not grounded upon our obligations to the Authority it self yet it is most clearly derived from an higher Obligation that all men are under to advance the welfare of mankind and more particularly of that Society they live in that is antecedent to those of Government which is instituted only in order to the common good And therefore though our duty in such cases could not be deduced from our obligation to any humane Authority yet it clearly arises from that duty of Charity we owe to our Fellow Creatures And though we are not to submit our Vnderstandings to any Humane Power yet we are to the first and Fundamental Laws of Charity which being one of the greatest duties of mankind it is but reasonable to forego all more private and inferior obligations when they stand in competition with it And thus St. Paul notwithstanding he declaimed with so much vehemence against the observation of the Judaical Rites and Ceremonies never scrupled to use them as oft as it was serviceable to the advancement of the Christian Religion
and by consequence the good of mankind And all I would perswade men to is only that they would do as much out of duty as St. Paul did out of civility that as he complied with the apprehensions of the Jews retaining his own private judgment to himself for the greater advantage of Religion so they would whatever their own perswasions are of some things not clearly and absolutely sinful comply with the determinations of their Governours when it is conducive to the nobler ends of Publick Peace and Tranquillity A thing in it self so good and so necessary that there are very few actions that it will not render virtuous whatever they are in themselves whenever they happen to be useful and instrumental to its attainment And therefore in all matters that are no indispensable duties of Religion he that acts cross to the commands of Authority has no sense either of the great ends of Order and Government or great duties of Humanity Modest Peaceableness Meekness and Civility i. e. He is a proud and factious person and has no other motive so to do but the pleasure of being peevish and disobedient In fine there is a vast difference between Liberty and Authority of Conscience the former consists in the Freedom of a mans own judgment and of this no Magistrate can deprive us in that he cannot tie up any mans understanding from judging of things as himself pleaseth But as for the latter that consists in the power over mens outward actions and this as far as it concerns all publick affairs every man does and of necessity must pass away to the Rulers of that Society he lives in Because though I have said it often enough already yet too often I cannot say it in that it is the main Key of the Controversie and yet but little if at all regarded by our Adversaries the very nature of Government consists in nothing else but a power of command over mens actions and therefore unless all men grant it away to their Governours they live not under Government but in a state of Anarchy Every man will be Prince and Monarch to himself and as free from all commands as if he lived out of all Society seeing only himself shall have any real Dominion over his own actions and his Governours shall not have power to command him any thing but what himself first thinks fit to do And I hope I need not to prove that this is a plain dissolution of all Government So that when men will be the absolute Masters of their own actions it is not the freedom of Conscience but its power and sovereignty for which they contend they will endure none to rule over them but themselves and force Princes to submit their Laws to their saucy and imperious humour And it is this they mean by their pretence to a tender Conscience i. e. A Conscience that scruples to be subject to Government that will in spight of all Publick Laws be entirely at its own Liberty that will not submit it self to any Rule but its own private perswasions that affects to be nice and squeamish against all the commands of its Superiours and loves to censure them upon the lightest and most slender presumptions and that will not yield up any thing of its own phantastick humour to its Princes will or the Churches Peace i. e. in effect the tenderness of their Consciences for which forsooth they must be born with consists in nothing else but their being the greatest and most Notorious Hereticks For the rankest sort of Heresie is nothing but the product of a peevish and contentious Spirit and an Heretick is one that delights in Quarrels and Factions whence Erasmus renders S. Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sectarum Author a man that loves to be the Leader of a Party It is peevishness and obstinacy of will that turns small Errors into great Heresies Pride and Passion and whatsoever can make an opinion vicious are its Fundamental Ingredients and give it its essential Formality This vice lies not so much in the Opinions as in the tempers of men it is a stubborn and refractory disposition of mind or a peremptoriness in a mans own conceptions and therefore it is by Saint Paul reckon'd among the Fruits of the Flesh as being a kind of brutish peevishness that is directly opposed to that lenity and yieldingness of mind that is one of the choicest Fruits of the Spirit whence he advises not to confute but to admonish such an one i. e. That is quarrelsome and boisterous for every trifle and every fancy because through Pride and Perversness he is uncapable of instruction and therefore can only be advised and not disputed into Sobriety Or to use the phrase of Saint Paul he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fellow that is troublesome and contentious especially about the external Rites and Usages of the Church And such a malapert Non-Conformist he supposes disputing in the Church of Corinth that their Women ought contrary to their received Custom to be uncovered at Divine Service But he takes him up with this short and peremptory answer If any man seem to be contentious we have no such custom neither the Churches of God i. e. In things neither morally good nor evil as few external Rites are the practice of the Church is the warrant of their lawfulness and reason of their decency and that is satisfaction enough to any sober and peaceable mind And he that shall refractorily persist to controul it must be treated as a disturber of the Peace i. e. pitied and punished as are all other turbulent and seditious Persons When mens Consciences are so squeamish or so humorsome as that they will rise against the Customs and Injunctions of the Church they live in she must scourge them into order and chastise them not so much for their fond perswasion as for their troublesome peevishness And this use of the Churches Rods and Censures is so absolutely necessary that it is the only effectual way to preserve her from Factions and Contentions not only because upon this sort of men softer methods can make no impressions but also because if we remove the limits and boundaries of Discipline there will be no end of the follies and frenzies of brain-sick People And when they are once let loose who then can set bounds to the wildnesses of Godly Madness For this we have too clear a proof in the frantick practices of our Modern Sectaries who when they had inflamed their little Zeal against the Ceremonial Constitutions of our Church ran themselves into all manner of wild and extravagant gestures They measured the simplicity of Christs Worship by its opposition to all the Rules of Decency all Institutions of Order were unwarrantable Inventions and Traditions of Men all Custom was Superstition and all Discipline was Popish and Antichristian Novelty how uncouth and fantastick soever was their only Rule of Decency and every Sect distinguished it self from all others by some