them to his Government and oblige them to their Duty i. e. If he will set them at perfect Liberty from all Subjection and absolve them from all Obligations to Allegiance they will promise to be his most Loyal Subjects For if you consider it you will find nothing in Humane Nature capable of the Obligation of Laws beside Conscience For Obligation is but a tie to Duty and all Duty is tied upon the Conscience i. e. the Mind of Man as 't is capable of Moral Actions or of being govern'd by the Rules of Good and Evil. Conscience then to omit the equally nice and useless Definitions of the Schools is nothing but the Soul or Mind of Man that undergoes various Denominations from its various Powers and Abilities as when it conceives of things 't is called Understanding when it discourses Reason when it determines Judgment when it chuses Will and when it reflects upon it self and its own actions Conscience Every Mans Mind is his Judgment his Reason his Will and his Conscience that are but several Names of the same Being according to its several Functions and Ways of Acting Now though Conscience in the Grammatical sense of the word may indifferently signifie all reflex Knowledge yet 't is by common use appropriated to the Mind as it is imployed about Good or Evil and capable of being guided and governed in reference to its Moral Actions I say of being guided and governed because though it is its own Judge yet it is not its own Rule but all the Laws whereby it is conducted are derived from other Principles First There are the natural Reasons and Proportions of Good and Evil that arise from the unalterable Respects and Relations of Things to Things in acting suitably to which consists the natural Morality of all prime and essential Goodness Thus from the relation between God and his Creatures springs the natural Duty of Divine Worship and Religion i. e. of making grateful Returns and Acknowledgments to Him for all the Communications of his Bounty and Goodness to us in which there is a natural Decency and Agreeableness that obliges every Rational Creature to its performance antecedently to all superinduced obligations of Laws It being therefore commanded because 't is good and not therefore good because 't is commanded And from the like Reasons and Correspondencies of Nature arise all the Duties in reference to our Neighbours and our Selves whereby we are to conduct all our moral Actions and are obliged to every thing that is either perfective of our own Natures or conducive to the Happiness of others Now these essential Reasons of Good and Evil are either the subject matter or the end of all Laws that are enacted only to prescribe and enforce either the practice of these natural Duties themselves or of something else subservient to them But as these are the only Rule of Laws so are Laws the only Rule of Conscience 't is not left at liberty to follow its own inclinations but 't is bound to guide it self and all its Actions by the Rules prescribed to it by its Superiours i. e. by Divine and Humane Laws Though indeed without these an upright Conscience left to it self would be an excellent Guide of all our Actions and if rightly observed and attended to sufficient to secure the Peace and Welfare of Mankind For an honest Mind that prudently and impartially attends to the natural Reasons of Good and Evil and endeavours to make them the Rules and Measures of its Actions can never fail of some competent Performance of its main Duties in all its Relations And if all Mens Consciences might have been trusted with their own Wisdom and Integrity all other Government would have been useless and superfluous in that every man would have govern'd himself by the Laws of essential Justice and Equity i. e. if all men might be supposed wise and good they would stand in need of no Governours but themselves and what they now do in Obedience to the Laws of the Common-wealth they would then do out of choice and in obedience to the Obligations of Conscience But because this supposition is become impossible and proved so by experience through the universal Depravation of humane Nature and because few Persons have either leisure or ability to search out the original Reasons of Good and Evil that are discoverable no other way then Mathematical Problems and Propositions are by serious and attentive meditation and laborious trains and deductions of Reason mankind are not left to the workings and discoveries of their own Minds for the Rule of their Actions But our whole Duty is digested to our hands in bodies and digests of Laws and nothing is required of us but what is prescribed by express and particular Constitutions And therefore men consider not what they would have in their general demands of Liberty and Exemption of Conscience because Conscience it self is an indefinite Principle and undetermined to Good or Evil and becomes so respectively according to its agreement or disagreement with its Rule If it act conformably to that its action is good if it do not its evil how bold and confident soever it may be in its Perswasions so that 't is no competent Justification of any action to plead that it agrees with the Perswasions of my Conscience unless I can first prove that the Perswasions of my Conscience agree with the Rules of my Duty and therefore Conscience alone is no sufficient warrant of its Lawfulness because a man may act according to his Conscience and yet do very ill by acting contrary to his Rule But Conscience when it is rightly instructed and well acquainted with the Rule of its Duty then 't is a true guide of mens Actions but this takes in all the Dictates of right reason as they lie couched under divine and humane Laws Both which in their several Proportions make up the adequate Rule of Conscience that without them signifies nothing else then an unaccountable will humour or inclination And therefore 't is ridiculous to oppose the Pretences of Conscience to the Prescriptions of Lawful Superiours unless by virtue of some express command of an higher and over-ruling Authority because 't is the Law it self that directs and warrants our Actions And therefore in any case to plead Restraints of Conscience without producing some particular Law is in effect to plead nothing at all or at best nothing but humour and peevishness for by what name soever men may call it 't is nothing else when it lies not under the direction of Law And therefore their claim of Liberty from the nature of Conscience which they lay down in all their Discourses as the Fundamental Principle and first Postulatum of this Controversie is too exorbitant for their purpose and abates the whole plea by the intolerable unreasonableness of the Pretence For they challenge this Prerogative upon this Account that 't is such a Judgment of a mans Actions as carries in it a relation to
foul and thick a Cause the more they struggle the faster they stick and therefore they would be well advised not to dally too much with that Author for though I know him to be far from an angry or a Cynical Humour yet I am able to discern such an hatred and antipathy to Hypocrisie from the Genius of his Writings that if they will tempt him to unrip all their Folly and Knavery he is apt enough to discover such thick Blasphemies against Divine Providence and such unparallel'd Abuses of Religion in their most sumptuous Pretences and most plausible Practices as shall represent the Men of greatest Reputation amongst them for Wisdom and Learning in as ridiculous a Guise as T. W. and the Men of greatest Vogue for Conscience and Integrity under as seditious a Character as W. B. and no Man more obnoxious upon both accounts then I. O. And who can endure to see Men that are so horribly bemired bear up with so much State and Confidence § 14. But the great Nuissance of my Preface is some unkind and unhappy Reflections that I chanced I know not by what Mis-fortune to cast out upon their Gift of Prayer This is the dear Palladium of their Pulpits and they will as soon fling up the whole Cause as forego this Priviledge of Talking 'T is the Ephod and the Teraphim of the House of Micah and nothing shall ever wrest it from them but Fine Force and Invincible Resolution and therefore where this is endanger'd or invaded our Author you may be sure will lay about him with all the power of Words and vehemence of Zeal so that here I must struggle to purpose to carry off this Darling of the Cause In the first place then the Man is Wonder-strucken that I should design all along to charge my Adversaries with Pharisaism and yet should instance in their Confession of Sin when it is the Characteristical Note of the Pharisees that they made no Confession of Sin at all But to awaken him out of his amazement he may know that the Pharisaick Hypocrisie consists neither in long Prayers nor short Confessions no more then it does in long Robes or short Cloaks Spiritual Pride is its onely Essential Character and it is of no Concernment which way and in what Expressions it vents and discovers its self There is a creeping as well as a vaunting Arrogance and this Vice is never so confident as when it appears in the Garbs and Postures of Humility And thus when Men dissemble with the Almighty when they know that they belye themselves with false Accusations when they mourn for Sins of which they think they stand clear and innocent and pretend to be humbled for those Offences of which they are not seriously convinced Tell me a greater instance of Pride and Insolence in the World then this jugling and counterfeit Humility for what else can these Men think within but that they oblige and complement the Almighty by being content to be thought viler Wretches then they think themselves onely to advance the Interest of Gods Glory and set off the greatness of his Free Grace And what an obliging Favour is this when they will sacrifice their own Reputation to the Glory and Renown of his Attributes So that 't is apparently a coarser piece of vanity to confess those Sins of which we are not guilty then not to acknowledge those of which we are And that there is something of this Leven lurking at the bottom of all this Humiliation is notoriously evident for as much as howsoever humble and complemental they are in their Talk to God yet in their Conversation with Men the Scene immediately alters then they return to the old Pharisaick Vomit and then Publicans keep your distance and then they censure and despise their Neighbours as Carnal Gospellers and applaud themselves that they are not as the Men of the World Then we bless the Lord for humbling our proud Hearts and for emptying us of all our Self-righteousness thereby to bring us effectually to an experimental sense of the deep and more spiritual Mysteries of the Gospel to an heavenly taste and relish of the sweetness and preciousness of the Lord Jesus and of that Soul-ravishing delight wherewith his People are affected in their spiritual Closings with him and lastly to an inward feeling of the glorious Discoveries Manifestations and Comings in of his Spirit upon the Hearts of Believers in all his Ordinances This is the inward practical and experimental part of the Mystery of Godliness whereas your Formalists and meer Moral Professors make a great Noise about their dry Devotions and Self-wrought-out-Mortifications But alas poor deluded Wretches they never viewed the Ugliness of their Nature in the Glass of the Law they never lay under the Horrours of the Spirit of Bondage they never had a humbling sight and thorough sense of their Sins and were never perfectly emptied of their own Self-righteousness and though they can do good Actions yet they cannot deny them and make woful Complaints to Almighty God that all the Duties they perform though they know them to be agreeable to his Laws are wicked and abominable Ah! this Corrupt Nature is a proud Thing and hardly driven out of its Trust and Confidence in its own Righteousness nothing but an absolute and thorough Conviction of its own Self-emptiness Self-abhorrency and Self-despair can ever bring it to a full and absolute Close with the Lord Christ. This is the Block at which Millions of poor Souls stumble everlastingly and 't is the Lords distinguishing Mercy that has taken the Veil from off our Eyes and enabled us to see the danger of a Self-righteousness So that this Pageantry is the main ground of all their Spiritual Pride and Arrogance upon this they build the lofty Conceits of their own peculiar Godliness and their insolent Contempt of all others that have more Wit or less Vanity then to be as fond and phantastick as themselves and in the result of all this formal and counterfeit Humility is made the specifick difference between the People of God and the Men of the World But here his Pen takes occasion to flie out for 't is very unruly upon a Censure of mine against an Insolence of theirs for confining the Elect and the Godly to their own Party and esteeming of us as no better then the Wicked and the Reprobate of the Earth Wherein says he I am satisfied that he unduly chargeth those whom he intends to reflect upon However I am none of them I confine not Holiness to a Party not to the Church of England or to those that dissent from it This his Confidence dares affirm though 't is so notorious that never any Party of Men in the World no not the Jews did with greater assurance appropriate to themselves all the Titles and Characters of the People of God For what else mean their Accounts and Descriptions of the Power of Godliness by the Singularities of their own
the same thing in reference to Government can pretend to tenderness and want of satisfaction shall be allowed to plead Exemption from the Duty of Obedience to the will of his lawful Superiours there will be no avoiding the Coâ—sequence at least as to the practice of the World but that all the Power and Wisdom of Authority must submit to the Follies Passions and Extravagances of the Multitude and howsoever Men may wind themselves up and down in Mazes of endless Niceties and Distinctions they will never clear themselves from the unavoidable event of Anarchy and Confusion as long as they promiscuously admit the Pretensions of an unsatisfied Conscience and yet that they will be forced to do if they stop not at the plain the easie and the discernable Measures of Duty and therefore Men must not be allowed to excuse themselves from the Authority of Humane Laws upon slender grounds and weak surmises nor conclude the matter of the Law to be antecedently unlawful unless it be certainly and apparently so And this will farther appear highly reasonable from the Nature of Gods Laws that are always plain and easie and the Nature of the Matters about which they are employed that are always of a great and evident necessity so that things really liable to doubt and disputation are not of importance enough to be reckoned in the number of indispensable Duties and unless they are clearly and apparently evil that is an unquestionable evidence that they are not intrinsecally so the perspicuity of the Law and the importance of the Duty are to an ingenuous Mind uncapable of doubt and uncertainty and therefore where there appears no certain and express Repugnancy to the Law of God that is presumption enough to satisfie any sober and peaceable Man in their lawfulness § 7. But that which is most material to the Determination of Conscience in this Enquiry is this That there is no Rule of Life and Manners more express and unavoidable nor any Duty in the Gospel enjoined in more positive Terms and under more severe Penalties than this of Obedience to the Commands of Supreme Authority and God has tied all their just Laws upon our Consciences by vertue of his own Authority and under pain of his own displeasure and as Men would acquit themselves in their Obedience to his Laws they are bound under the same Sanctions to acquit themselves in their Obedience to theirs And now upon this Principle no truly upright and conscientious Man will ever go about to riggle himself out of his Duty to his lawful Superiours out of any regard to any Law of God when he is not as clearly and abundantly satisfied of the certainty and necessity of its Obligation Nay he cannot with safety and without violence to his own Conscience remonstrate to the Commands of lawful Authority unless upon Reasons more bright and forcible than the express words of St. Paul It is necessary that ye be subject not onely for wrath but also for Conscience sake And if Men would as they ought suspend their Scruples and Exceptions till they can make it out to themselves that they are as certain as necessary and as universal Duties of Religion as Obedience to the Commands of lawful Superiours we could not desire a more effectual Bar to all our Schisms and Distractions For none of the matters of our difference can either pretend to or are indeed capable of equal evidence with this express Proposition of the blessed Apostle and therefore if they would stand firm and loyal to this Doctrine till they can produce more clear and convincing Scriptures to vouch their own singular Conceits that must for ever stifle all former Quarrels and prevent all farther Dissentions v.g. Whereas our Author is required by his lawful Superiours to use the Sign of the Cross in the Sacrament of Baptism he puts in his Exception against the lawfulness of the Command in that it enjoins a Symbolical Ceremony and every Symbolical Ceremony is of the Nature of a Sacrament and no Sacrament can or ought to be instituted but by Divine Authority and therefore for any Humane Power to establish new Symbolical Ceremonies is to invade Gods own peculiar Royalty and Jurisdiction In which Cavil are involved a great number of dark uncertain and perhaps indeterminable Enquiries yet however to keep to the main pretence let him but conform to this Injunction till he can alledge any Text of Scripture that affirms in as clear and dogmatical words that every Symbolical Ceremony is of the Nature of a Sacrament as are those of St. Peter Be ye subject to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake And then we shall neither need nor desire any farther security to prevent his defection from the establish't Discipline of the Church in that Affair So that if Men would learn to be peaceable and ingenuous this plain and obvious Principle would either forestal or supersede all their scruples And in truth the Commands of Authority so much surmount their Obligation and anticipate their Pretence that the very Plea of a tender and unsatisfied Conscience in Opposition to Publick Laws is in it self a direct Principle of Sedition and an open Affront to Government and therefore whoever they are that vouch and pretend its prohibition to the proceedings of lawful Authority deserve for that reason alone the shame and correction of sturdy and irreclaimable Schismaticks And here 't is a woful Impertinence for Men to oppose as our Author has done the Authority of God and of Conscience to that of Men for that is to plead God and Conscience against themselves in that Humane Laws are as much tied upon us by his own immediate Command as his own immediate Institutions and whatsoever lawful Superiours impose upon our Practice that he binds upon our Conscience and though their Decrees pass no direct Obligation upon the Consciences of Men yet the Laws of God directly and immediately bind their Consciences to Obedience and he has threatned the same Eternal Penalties to our contempt of and disobedience to their Laws as he has annext to his own Commands 'T is enough therefore that the Conscience is bound by the Laws of Men though that Obligation be tied upon it by the Laws of God So that it is not the different Obligations of Humane and Divine Laws that are to be considered in this Enquiry for the Authority of God is equally concerned in both and all the Contest lies entirely between the Matters of the Command viz. Whether God have by as certain as absolute and as indispensable a Law restrained us from the practice of what our Superiours enjoin as he has enjoined us to yield all ready and cheerful Obedience to their Commands And when the state of the Controversie is shifted to this Enquiry 't is another woful Impertinence to plead the Rule of St. Paul He that doubteth is damned if he eat to countenance and warrant their suspension of Obedience for where the doubt has but
the future Judgment of God and therefore seeing it is so immediately subject to his Authority it must of necessity be priviledg'd from all the power of all other Laws and Jurisdictions But if this be a fair and logical Deduction there is no avoiding to conclude that every mans Conscience is in all its actions exempt from all humane Authority and ought not to be subject or accountable to any other Power but the Divine Majesty seeing in all the other Affairs of humane life 't is as much obliged to regard the future Judgment of God as in matters of Divine Worship and therefore if its reference to its future Accounts be sufficient in any one case to give it Protection against the Power of Princes 't is so in all § 18. But further what if it so happen that Conscience is abused by false and evil Perswasions then it unavoidably leads into all manner of lewd and vicious Practices and there is nothing so mischievous or so exorbitant to which an erroneous Conscience will not betray us For when it has once entertain'd wicked and Seditious Principles there mischief becomes irresistible Rogues and Outlaws are under some possibility of Reformation because they never think themselves obliged in duty to their Villanies and are convinced in their own Thoughts of the baseness of their Practices and stand in some awe of the Penalties of the Laws Whereas debauch'd Consciences are bold and confident in their Wickedness and their Guilt is in their own Opinion their Innocence and their Crime their Duty And if Authority ever punish their Disobedience and Rebellion they suffer with the confidence of Martyrs and they dye for preserving a good Conscience and following the best Light God has given them If they rebel 't is their Zeal for the Lord of Hosts God and Religion are ever concern'd in their Quarrels and when they fight against their lawful Superiours they only oppose the Enemies of the Gospel and when they embroil Kingdoms in Wars and Confusions they only wage War against Babylon and Antichrist and whatever they attempt be it never so vile and wicked 't is still in the Cause of God And now considering how few they are that pursue the right methods of knowledge and upon what innumerable Accounts the minds of men may be abused and misguided vulgar Conscience will be found the most mistaken most mischievous and most unreasonable Guide in the world For as a right Conscience is acquired only by a sincere regular and impartial use of our Faculties so is a wrong one by all the possible ways and causes of Errour viz. Ignorance Fancy Prejudice Partiality Self-love Envy Ambition Pride Passion and Superstition Any of which though they are the greatest Principles of Disturbance in the World may corrupt and debauch the minds of men and then challenge to themselves the sacredness and authority of Conscience For every mans Errour in matters of Religion becomes his Duty and Pride and Folly and Ignorance and Malice and any thing else if it were a Religious Dress immediately becomes sacred and inviolable And now when the principles of natural Reason are debauch'd with absurd and seditious Prejudices the Contradictories of moral truth and goodness become the only Rule of Conscience and men think themselves directly obliged to what directly opposes the highest Interests of mankind and the main obligations of Religion And from hence it is so vulgar a Phaenomenon in the world that Sacriledge is transformed into Reformation Inhumanity into Zeal Perjury into Religion Faction into Humility and Rebellion it self into Loyalty So that 't is no unusual thing for the Perswasions of Conscience to cancel the very Laws of Nature and pervert all the differences of Good and Evil and then are men brought under all the obligations that Conscience can lay upon them to the practice of Wickedness and Villany And then to leave them to their own liberty is not only to allow them to be wicked but in effect to oblige them to be so because this delivers them up to the guidance and authority of a profligate Conscience that effectually binds them to follow its own wretched and unreasonable Dictates So that the result of all is that there is no folly or wickedness how lewd or extravagant soever that may not patronize it self under mistakes of Conscience Sometimes and always unless by a mighty chance 't is ignorance and popular Folly for 't is natural to the Multitude to be ignorant and foolish or to use false and incompetent methods of knowledge and to determine their notions of things upon unreasonable grounds and motives Their Judgments are disposed of by chance and accidental Principles and their fancies and fond Perswasions are the measures of their Consciences and they pursue things for their agreeableness with weak and vulgar Prejudices without ever proceeding to an impartial deliberation of their Truth and Goodness Opinion they say is the guide of fools and such is the vulgar and ignorant sort of mankind that generally judge of things by trifling and impertinent Conceits and then force their Reasons to follow as chance and folly shall command them And then all this is their Conscience that must in spight of all its exorbitances be suffer'd to do as it please Folly especially in divine matters is always in conjunction with confidence and there is nothing in the world more obstinate and inflexible then religious Ignorance And men never play the fool with greater assurance and satisfaction then in sacred matters insomuch that some who are always telling tragical stories of the ruines and desperate Corruptions of humane nature as if it had irrecoverably lost all power of discerning between truth and falshood and are so far from having any pretence to infallibility that if they would understand the necessary and unavoidable Consequences of their own Principles they cannot pretend to any such thing as certainty yet are as confident in all their Perswasions as if all their thoughts were Oracles and a Person that knows himself to be acted by an unerring spirit could not be more peremptory in his sentiments of things than they are in their rash and ungrounded Prejudices Now 't is the Consciences of the vulgar rout or the drove of Ignorance and Prejudice that are wont to be so troublesom and wayward to Government they are zealous and confident because they are ignorant and they are therefore impatient of all contradiction in their mistakes because they have fastned upon them at all adventure Are not Commonwealths then likely to be admirably govern'd when their peace and setlement must lie at the mercy of every cross-grain'd and insolent Fool Sometimes 't is superstition and nothing more vulgar than for men to abuse their Consciences with this unquiet and impotent Passion For when their minds are possessed and 't is an epidemical Malady with wrong notions of God and hard jealousies and suspicions of his Government of the World this cannot but make them apprehend hir Laws
the most clamorous of the Herd are not able to give the least tolerable Account of their Zeal and Displeasure but run away with any pitiful and unintelligible Pretences and resolve to make good the Cause at all adventure by heat and noise and passion How do they dread the Superstition of a Symbolical Ceremony though they as little understand the true signification of that word as they do the Orthodox Notion of a Procatarctick Cause And therefore 't is not this hard word that scares them from the Churches Communion but 't is their own conceited and pragmatical Humour that affects and triumphs in Contradiction They think it a gallant thing to make a Noise in the World and to correct the Wisdom and Discretion of Publick Authority and that is a fine thing indeed This extravagant Pride is strangely agreeable to the Original Itch and Vanity of Humane Nature and is more natural to Mankind then the Follies of Lust and Wantonness and there is no Inclination that is so difficult either to govern or to vanquish as this petulancy of spirit And men had need to be very watchful and very serious to get the mastery of so fierce and impetuous an Instinct And therefore if we consider how insensible the People are of the Enticements of this Spiritual Lewdness and how unconcern'd to resist the Importunity of its desires or to subdue the force and vigour of its Inclinations 't is no wonder if so vehement a Passion gain without their own express Allowance so entire and absolute a Power over all their Thoughts and Actions So easie you see it is for well-meaning Men to mistake Humour for Conscience though not out of deliberate Malice yet through Ignorance and Inadvertency And therefore think not Sir that 't is the scope of my Design to scoff at their Faults and upbraid their Follies 't is nothing but a Cordial Love to Vertue and Themselves that put me upon these free open and ingenuous Reprehensions For could we but affect the Minds of Men with a serious sense of their Spiritual Wickednesses and prevail with them to make use of all the ordinary methods of Reason and Christian Prudence for the Mortification of their Original Pride and Sullenness and could we but reduce them to the softness and gentleness of a Christian Temper how ashamed would they be of this brawling and contentious Humour And they would then scarce think it decent to be bold and malapert to their Superiours for any cause of Religion nor would they think it worth the while to sacrifice the indispensable Duties of the Gospel for every scruple and weak Proposition nor disturb the Publick Peace nor affront the Publick Laws for Impertinencies and trifling Opinions They would then live quietly in their own Families and Neighbourhoods and pursue the Interest and Employment of their Callings instead of carrying Tales and sowing Dissentions And the precious time they now wast in quarrelling for Opinions and in arguings and disputings for Trifles and impotent Fancies they would then improve in Offices of Love and Charity among their Neighbours in relieving the Necessitous in reconciling Differences in stifling Slanders and in clearing injured Reputations To conclude so far would Tenderness of Conscience be from pleading Scruple and Nicety in Opposition to the Commands of Publick Authority that it would not be more tender and curious of any Duty then Obedience and Humility The serious sense of its own Weakness its Reverence to the Persons and Authority of Superiours its love of Modesty Meekness Humility Peace and Ingenuity would easily prevail with it to offer up all its private Conceits and uncertain Opinions to so many Advantages of Peace and so many Vertues of Obedience § 10. II. They are not content to run down the Author with Lyes and Calumnies but to make sure work they will slander his Reasonings and raise false witness against his Arguments They will alter and pervert his smartest and most convictive Proofs till they have made them as weak and trifling as their own Pretences With whatsoever plainness and perspicuity he express his Thoughts 't is all one for that they are a People of an undaunted and shameless Brow they will look Truth and Reason out of Countenance they will insult over his Modesty will triumph in their own Insolence and silence all the Reason in the World with Affronts and rude Behaviour They are resolved to joyn Throats to Vote him down and if they do to what purpose is it to Complain or Remonstrate all he shall gain by it is to be laugh't at for the vanity of his Attempt They blush not to commit a publick Rape upon the Understandings of Mankind and will impose upon us with that boisterous Rudeness as if they conspired to force all the World out of their common senses No Author must challenge the liberty of being his own Interpreter the Power of Expounding Assertions is the Priviledge of the Subject and the Prerogative of the Multitude and if they please they can enforce any Writer to accept a sense that contradicts his words And if they do there is neither Remedy nor Appeal their Judgement is final and arbitrary and what they will have they will have No Caution is sufficient to prevent their Clamours their Leaders can easily descry a foul Design under the fairest Disguise and 't is but setting themselves to contrive some dull and malicious Mistakes and obtruding them upon their blind and sturdy Proselytes and then they are confident and impatient against his whole Discourse and the poor Man without any more ado is knockt down with grievous and dead-doing Objections If Mas Iohn do but whisper some ugly and ill-contrived suggestion away 't is carried with Clamour and Tragical Declamation the Noise propagates like Thunder and spreads like Lightning and the whole City is filled with Tumult and Uproar And now after all this 't is no less impossible to perswade them not to rail at my Book then it is to read it No! 't is prophane 't is stuft with wicked and ungodly Opinions it strikes at the whole Power of Godliness and the very Foundations of Religion and then let me affirm and deny say and prove what I can the People must and will persist in their Anger and their Clamour they will refuse to be satisfied affront their own Consciences and turn Recusants to their own Convictions onely that they may not want pretences and opportunities to rail at me Now what shall a Man do in this case You will say there is no Remedy but Patience that is the onely Antidote against the Venome of malicious Tongues and let your own Innocence be your Defence and Apology But alas this Morality is too high a Cordial for my present exigence my Spirits are not so fainting as to stand in need of Philosophy to relieve and support them I am too proud you know to be affected with all the assaults of Noise and Clamour nothing but Reason can ever move or
as the Capitol and you may sooner remove Mountains then shake their Confidence But is it not prodigious to see people so jocundly satisfied with a Book written with so much looseness as if its Author had either utterly forgot what I had utter'd or cared not what himself was to prove a Book wherein 't is hard to find a passage that is not coarsly false or impertinent and very few that are not apparently both a Book in which you shall meet with nothing singular and remarkable but horrid Untruths and Falsifications § 14. But however a Book he resolved to write without regard to Truth or Falshood and though he were not so lamentably costive as a late Brother of the scribling humour that was so far to seek for an Exordium that he was forced to take his rise at the day of the Moneth and the year of our Lord yet he was much more unhappy to make his entrance with such an awkerd acknowledgement as must for ever defeat and discredit the design of his whole performance by confessing that all his Pleas how solemn and serious soever he may appear are but dissembled and hypocritical Pretences When he tells us that 't is none of the least disadvantages of his Cause that he is enforced to admit a Supposition that those whom he pleads for are indeed really mistaken in their apprehensions But though this may seem a rash and unadvised Concession yet if you examine it you will find it a notable wily and cunning device For unless he will give place to such a Supposition or if he will rigidly contend that what he pleads in the behalf of is absolutely the Truth and that Obedience thereunto is the direct Will and Command of God there remains no proper Field for the Debate about Indulgence to be managed in For things acknowledged to be such are not capable of an Indulgence properly so called because the utmost Liberty that is necessary unto them is their right and due in strict Iustice and Law And yet the whole scope of his Apology and the onely Fundamental Principle upon which he builds is that they are obliged to do what they do out of Obedience to the Will and Command of God and by consequence the things they contend for are not capable of any Indulgence but are matters of indispensable duty and Divine right so that were the Government of Church-Affairs at their disposal they must establish the things that they desire to be indulged in as duties of strict Iustice and Law and restrain all other different forms and practices out of regard to the Divine Command and then to tolerate ours or any other way of Worship distinct from their own would be to permit men to live in open defiance to the direct Will and Command of God that has precisely injoyned a different Form of Worship So that it seems all pretences for Liberty of Conscience are but artificial Disguises for the advantage of farther Designs and when they gain it then the Mask falls off and the Scene is shifted and Petitions for Indulgence immediately swell up into Demands of Reformation So unfortunate is this Man in his whole performance that by all the Principles he has made use of to plead for Indulgence he is obliged to plead against it And there is not a more effectual Argument against Toleration of different Forms of Worship then their Fundamental Conceit that nothing ought to be practised or establish't in the Worship of God but what is precisely warranted and authorized in the Word of God For this restrains and disavows all Forms but one and ties all the Christian World to a nice and exact Conformity to that compleat and adequate Rule of Worship But suppose he were to speak to the Nature of the things themselves and not to the Apprehensions of them with whom he has to do Then farewel all soft and gentle Language and you shall hear nothing but Thundrings against Superstition Will-worship Episcopal Tyranny Popish Corruptions Rags of the Whore and the Dregs of the Romish Beast Then what is Prelacy but a meer Antichristian Encroachment upon the Inheritance of Christ And he that thinks Babylon is confined to Rome and its open Idolatry knows nothing of Babylon nor of the New Jerusalem the depth of a subtle mystery does not lie in gross visible folly it has been insinuating it self into all the Nations for 1600 years and to most of them is now become as the marrow in their bones before it be wholly shaken out these Heavens must be dissolved and the Earth shaken i. e. as he expounds both himself and the Text the setled and establish't Government of the West must be subverted Their Tall Trees i. e. Kings and Princes hewed down and set a howling and the residue of them transplanted from one end of the Earth to the other Or as the same Author expresses himself upon another occasion The Heavens and the Earth of the Nations must be shaken because in their present Constitution they are directly framed to the Interest of Antichrist which by notable advantages at their first moulding and continued insinuations ever since hath so rivetted it self into the very Fundamentals of them that no digging or mining with an Earthquake will cast up the Foundation-stones thereof And therefore the Lord Iesus having promised the service of the Nations to his Church will so far open their whole frame to the roots as to pluck out all the cursed seeds of the Mystery of Iniquity which by the craft of Satan and exigences of State or methods of advancing the pride and power of some Sons of Blood have been sown amongst them And then abundance of Scripture and dark Prophesie is pour'd forth to make good these mild and peaceable Doctrines It is the great day of the wrath of the Lamb. The Land shall be soked with blood and the dust made fat with fatness for it is the day of the Lords vengeance and the year of recompence for the Controversie of Zion All the Kings of the earth have given their power to Antichrist endeavouring to the utmost to keep the Kingdom of Christ out of the World What I pray has been their main business for 700 years and upward even almost ever since the Man of Sin was enthroned How have they earned the Titles Eldest Son of the Church The Catholick and most Christian King Defender of the Faith Hath it not been by the blood of the Saints And now will not the Lord avenge his Elect that cry unto him day and night will he not do it speedily Will he not call the Fowls of Heaven to eat the Flesh of Kings and Captains and great Men of the Earth Rev. 19.18 All this must be done to cast down all opposition to the Kingdom of the Lord Christ and to advance it to its Glory and Power That consists mainly of these three things that he there reckons 1. Purity and Beauty of Ordinances and Gospel-worship
material Parts of Religion than any outward Expressions of Worship whatsoever And from hence I thought it but a very modest and reasonable Demand That Men would but yield to allow to Supreme Power the same Authority and Dominion over the Means and subordinate Instruments of Religion as they are ready enough to ascribe to it over its more important Ends and Designs and so agree to set the same Bounds and Measures to both Jurisdictions And now having reduced them to this Equality of Power I advanced to a more particular state of the whole Controversie by shewing to what Affairs in both kinds the Exercise of all Humane Authority is extended where it is limited and in what cases it is restrained And here I first exempted all the inward Actions of the Mind from the Cognizance and Jurisdiction of all Humane Authority and withal shewed how the substantial part of Religious Worship is performed within and so is in its own Nature beyond the reach of the Civil Magistrate and how all Expressions of External Worship as such are no Essential Parts of Religion and therefore that he is not in any capacity of doing direct and immediate Violence to Religion it self The Controversie being thus stated as to the inward Actions of the Mind the next Enquiry is concerning outward Practices and they are of two sorts either such as are apparently and antecedently evil and these are above the reach and beyond the Obligation of all Humane Laws their Morality is already so determined that no Humane Power can alter their Nature or rescind their Obligation but every thing forbidden becomes an intrinsecal and unalterable Sin and every thing commanded an eternal and unchangeable Duty Or else they are such as still remain in the state of indifferency and are left undetermined as to their Morality either by any certain Law of Nature or any clear positive Law of God and these are liable to the Commands and Determinations of Supreme Authority and are the proper Objects of Humane Laws in that there is no other restraint set to the extent of their Jurisdiction but the Countermand of a Superiour Power and therefore whatsoever Matters are left at Liberty by the Divine Law must be supposed determinable either way by the Commands of Soveraign Authority These are the most distinct Rules of Conscience in this Enquiry in reference to the Nature of the Actions themselves But besides these there are other accessional Reasons of Good and Evil that arise from the apprehensions of the Minds of Men concerning them and they also are of two sorts either such as relate to the Conceptions of other Men which may in some cases lay a restraint upon our Practices as in cases of meer scandal and this by some is pretended to excuse their disobedience to the Churches Constitutions and therefore I have distinctly examined the Nature and the Reasonableness of this Pretence and shewn how the Commands of Authority abolish all the Pretences and supersede all the Obligations of scandal Or else they are such as relate to a Man 's own apprehensions and this takes in the pretence of a doubtful and unsatisfied Conscience which is so zealously pleaded by most of our Separatists in justification of their Schism and therefore because I deem'd it was of more close and immediate Concernment to our present Affairs I have with greater exactness examined and stated the Obligatory Power of a weak and a tender Conscience and have largely proved the manifest absurdity of pleading Doubts and Scruples in opposition to the Commands of Authority and shewn that nothing can or ought to check with our Obligations to Obedience unless it cross with Matters of certain and apparent Duty and that all cases capable of Doubt and Uncertainty cannot be supposed of importance enough to weigh against the great Sin and Mischief of Disobedience So that the Result of my whole Discourse will at last run it self into this plain and easie Proposition That Obedience is indispensably due to all the Commands of Supreme Authority that are not certainly and apparently sinful And now tell me how I could have drawn up the state of this Controversie in a plainer or more familiar Method For the Propositions you see are distinct and comprehensive they take in all the particular Actions and Affairs of Humane Life and I cannot think of any imaginable Difficulty or Objection relating to the present matter in debate that does not apparently fall in under one of the forementioned Heads of Action Or how I could better have avoided the Inconveniences of both extreams and which way else I might have determined the matter by such easie and moderate Principles as may fairly satisfie all Mens Consciences that are ingenuous and condemn all that are not § 5. For 1. to vest the Supreme Magistrate in an unlimited and unaccountable Power is clearly to defeat the Efficacy and Obligatory Force of all his Laws that cannot possibly have any binding Vertue upon the Minds of Men when they have no other inducement to Obedience than barely to avoid the Penalty But if the Supreme Power be absolute and unlimited it does for that very Reason remove and evacuate all other Obligations for otherwise it is restrained and conditional and if Men lie under no other Impulsive than that of the Law it self they lie under no Obligation than that of Prudence and Self-interest and it remains entirely at the choice of their own discretion whether they shall or shall not obey and then there is neither Government nor Obligation to Obedience and the Principle of Mens Complyance with the Mind of Superiours is not the Declaration of their will and pleasure but purely the Determination of their own Judgments And therefore 't is necessary for the security of Government though for nothing else to set bounds to its Jurisdiction otherwise like the Roman Empire it sinks and dissolves by its own weight no Humane Power is able to support it self and the Thrones of Princes are establish't upon the Dominion of God remove his Authority and the force derived upon their Laws by vertue of his Commands and you untie all the Bands of Government and set Men at Liberty from all Obligations to the Duty of Obedience Or else 2. to grant Subjects a lawless and uncontroulable Liberty in all matters and pretences of Religion is to dissolve one half of the Government into to perfect Anarchy and yield up the Constitution of all Publick Affairs to the Humour and the Insolence of every wild Enthusiast and every pert Fellow that can abuse either himself or others with Fanatick Whimsies has it always in his own power to expose the setled frame of Government to the zealous folly of the Multitude If he have but a warm Brain and a bold Face with what ease may he fire the Rabble into Tumults and Godly Seditions 'T is but pouring forth dark Prophesies and Scripture-Allegories and declaiming against the Oppression of Earthly Powers and then with what
eagerness will the Capricious People flow into Cabals of Zeal and Musters of Reformation What Maxime in Policy is so fully ratified by the Histories of all Nations as that there is nothing equally dangerous to the Publick Tranquillity with the Zeal of the Multitude and 't is not easie to determine whether Mankind have smarted more deeply by the Ambition of Tyrants or the Impostures of Religion However 't is sufficiently verified by the experience of Ages that there is not any Passion so incident to Humane Nature as Popular Zeal nor any Madness so ungovernable as that of Religion and therefore what can more become or import the Wisdom of Governours than to keep a watchful eye upon all its designs and pretences But these things I have already represented in smarter and more elaborate Periods and therefore I will forbear to abate their evidence by these crude and hasty Suggestions But onely supposing it is not impossible what our Author has not gain-said nor indeed can without out-facing the experience of Mankind but that the Factions and Hypocrisies of Religion may create Publick Disturbances the deduction is easie and natural that to grant it a total exemption from the Soveraign Authority is at all times to expose the Commonwealth to great Disorders and oftentimes to unavoidable Dissolution And therefore seeing an unbounded Licence on one hand and an unlimited Power on the other are so pregnant with Mischiefs and intolerable Inconveniences the onely proper Determination that this Enquiry is capable of is to assign the just extent of a limited Jurisdiction and to state as distinctly as the Nature of the thing debated will admit how far in what cases and over what matters it may be safely exercised and within what Limits it ought to be restrained and he that prescribes the most useful and practicable Measures makes the fairest Essay at the Decision and Atonement of this Controversie This was the Attempt whatever was the Success of my Discourse and to say nothing of some more particular Rules and Directions the two great Lines wherein I have enclosed all matters of Humane Laws are of such a wide and comprehensive extent that in the midst of all the variety and intricacy of Humane Affairs 't is both easie to discern their lawful Bounds and unnecessary to transgress them For 1. let Authority beware of imposing things certainly and apparently evil and then there is no danger of their doing any violence to the Consciences of peaceable and sober Men or of their suffering any disturbance from them For the proper Office of Humane Power is to consult the Peace and Interest of Humane Society and the only immediate use of Publick Laws is to secure and provide for the Publick Good 'T is no part of their Concernment to institute Rules of Moral Good and Evil that is the Care and the Prerogative of a Superiour Lawgiver and therefore provided they do not cross with the express Declaration of his indispensable Will and Pleasure all other matters fall within the Verge of their Legislative Power For as nothing that carries with it an antecedent Irregularity can ever be supposed either necessary or advantageous to the Publick Good and therefore may without any danger of impairing the strength of its Power be lopt off from the Rights of Soveraign Jurisdiction so also many things left altogether indifferent and uncommanded by the Law of God may in all the various postures and turns and circumstances of Humane Affairs prove sometimes beneficial and sometimes pernicious to the Commonwealth and therefore the Supreme Magistrate being appointed the Supreme Judge of the Publick Good there is no remedy but they must fall under the Guidance of his Laws and Conduct of his Government Now 't is very easie for Christian Princes to move within so fair a compass and if any go beyond it as it is not for their Advantage so it is not of our Concernment For that Man must talk after a wild rate that should pretend to discover an evident Opposition in any of the Laws of our Kingdom to the plain and indispensable Duties of the Gospel or if they will be so precipitate as to pretend this we are very well content to devolve the issue of the Controversie upon that Undertaking and then are they brought under an engagement to prove a certain and undeniable repugnancy between the Laws of our Church and the Laws of God and to suspend their disobedience to them till they can warrant its necessity by some plain and express Text of Scripture And if they will but persevere in Conformity till they are indeed able thoroughly and satisfactorily to convince themselves of its evident unlawfulness that would for ever prevent all thoughts and attempts of Separation And this crosses me over to the opposite Bound of this Enquiry from the Power of the Magistrate to the Duty of the Subject Viz. That they would not scruple or deny Obedience to the Commands of lawful Superiours till they are sincerely not in pretence onely convinced of the certain and apparent unlawfulness of the Command § 6. And if we stop not the Subjects Liberty to remonstrate to the Commands of Authority at this Principle we shall be for ever at an utter loss to set any certain Bounds to the just and allowable Pretensions of Conscience For if they will not consent to have their Pleas of Exemption confined within the certain and evident Measures of Good and Evil but desire to be excused as to all other Pretexts and Perswasions of Conscience howsoever doubtful and uncertain then must every Conceit that may either be mistaken or pretended for a Conviction of Conscience be permitted to over-rule all the Power and baffle all the Wisdom of Government For be it never so wild or so extravagant if they are strongly or seriously possest with the Phantasm that and onely that shall ever exercise any Authority over their Thoughts and Actions and if Magistrates shall in any case think good to curb its heats and exorbitances they offer violence to the sacred and indispensable Obligations of Conscience and this unavoidably exposes the Peace of Kingdoms to all the Follies of Zeal and Impostures of Enthusiasm and prostitutes the Power of Princes to the stubbornness and insolence of Popular Folly Every one that is timorous or melancholy that has an indisposed Body or a troubled Mind that wants Sleep or wants Company that has an hard Spleen or a soft Head that has a strong Fancy or a weak Judgment a bold Ignorance or a conceited Knowledge an impertinent Opinion or a restless Humour a Whimsie in the Crown or a Vapour in the Hypocondria may upon that account exempt himself from all the Authority of the Laws and all the Obligations of Obedience For you know what a vulgar Phaenomenon it is for these and the like effects of folly and weakness to abuse the Consciences of well-meaning Men into Scruple and Irresolution and therefore if every Man that has or what is
one handle there it concerns us to hold that fast but where it has more 't is the safest way to hold by the strongest my meaning is where the danger of Sin lies but upon one side of the Action 't is no doubt a Mans Wisdom to determine his choice on the other that is undoubtedly safe and innocent but when there lies danger on both sides of the Enquiry then the doubt ceases to bind from Action and onely binds to Enquiry and 't is his Duty to resolve with the weightiest and most important Reasons and the strongest Obligation always cancels the doubt and determines the Judgment And this is the palpable difference of our case from that of St. Paul There all the Jealousie lay on the side of the Action and there was no ground or pretence for any suspicion of Sin in the forbearance and therefore it was a safe and easie Determination of the Scruple to resolve that way where there is neither doubt nor danger and in that case a total suspension of Action is our proper Duty But this is widely remote from the posture of our present Affairs where there lies some hazard of miscarriage on all sides and therefore the doubt is no warranty for the suspension of Obedience because if the matter of the Command be not certainly unlawful 't is certain that is so and therefore it can have no more Power to suspend than it has to bind to Action and there remains no other way to appease and satisfie the Conscience but to apply it self to depose the doubt and resolve to discard its unreasonable and trifling suspicions and confidently follow the guidance of its most probable Judgment and Determination And here the safest course as to the case under our present enquiry is to follow my former advice of joining in with the Commands of Authority that are not certainly and apparently sinful for nothing can out-balance their Obligation unless evident and unquestionable disobedience to God himself so that where this is not either plainly apparent or very forcibly proved there 't is but reasonable to sink the Scale and determine the Balance on the side of Authority and 't is a safe and an useful Rule of Life that in all disputable Cases the Commands of Authority abrogate the Irresolution and oblige to Action But if after they have determined the Case the Conscience will still remain stubborn or timorous so that it will not or dare not venture upon a Determination 't is either such a troublesome Infirmity as must be corrected or such an head-strong Humour as must be broken otherwise there is no conceivable way of governing Men that are either proud or peevish or ignorant This is plain and down-right Sense and if I mistake not Reason too And I know but one Exception that seems to carry in it any colour or appearance of difficulty against this way of stating the Government of Humane Affairs and 't is this § 8. When we come to apply particular Actions to these general Rules of Life and Government who shall judge of their Agreement with the Limits and Measures assign'd if this must be left to the different Judgments of the Prince and the Subject this Fabrick falls to pieces again and Men are still left at liberty to judge of the lawfulness of their Superiours Command by the best Light God has given them and they may be absolved from their Obligation by the Countermand of their private Judgment and so we are just as before and this great Engine for Publick Tranquillity vanisheth into Air and Smoak But this Cavil if it be of any strength or value concerns not in particular my state of the Controversie and lies indifferently against all Setlement of Humane Affairs and strikes equally at all Hypotheses of Government for upon what Principles soever Men shall setle and determine this Enquiry it will return upon them with as much if not more force than upon my Determinations For whatever Bounds and Limits they assign to the extent of Humane Power all its Commands must still be liable to the different Judgments of the Person that enjoins and the Person that obeys about which 't is as possible and as likely they may disagree as about those that I have prescribed and therefore I never design'd to prevent such Inconveniences as are unavoidable to Humane Affairs but onely to setle their management upon the best and safest Principles that the Nature of things is capable of For either Religion is entirely exempted from the Cognizance of Humane Powers and the Obligation of Humane Laws or else 't is in some cases obnoxious to their Jurisdiction The former is an Opinion so wild and intolerable as that it was never heretofore own'd by any but such perverse People as renounced all Subjection to Earthly Princes nor indeed can it be admitted without dissolving the whole Fabrick of Humane Government For that Prince must needs be vested with an absolute and uncontroulable Power whose Subjects can challenge an Exemption from his Authority as to all matters and pretences of Religion i. e. as to all things in that it extends its influence to all the affairs of Humane Life and therefore its Exemption is no less than flat Anarchy a Dissolution of all Laws and Subversion of all Societies The truth whereof is so infinitely certain from the Reason of Things and so universally confessed by the Experience of Mankind that it could never enter the Minds of any Men unless a few savage and inhumane Wretches that would have voted to break up Humane Society that they might betake themselves to the Woods and Desarts and there live after the Manners and Customs of unsociable Creatures and wild Vermin But of this I have treated largely enough and it is not contradicted by our Author he grants as all Men do that are not utterly revolted from the first Principles and Fundamental Laws of Humane Nature that in some cases and upon some occasions 't is necessary for the Supreme Magistrate to interpose his Power to setle and govern the things of Religion Thus far we are agreed and only differ in marking out the distinct Bounds and stating the particular Cases of his Jurisdiction and here whatsoever Determinations he may propose they must fall under the different Opinions of the Prince and the Subject v. g. Whereas he conceits he has sufficiently stated the Controversie in the general words of our blessed Saviour spoken to another purpose and upon a different occasion Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods I demand who shall determine the particular Rights of God and of Caesar Who shall assign the just Limits of their respective Dominions and who shall judge when Caesar passes beyond the Bounds of his Imperial Jurisdiction and when he intrenches upon Gods Authority by taking upon him a Dominion in such Matters as God has reserved for his own proper Cognizance and immediate Royalty So that in this
and all other Determinations there is no possible way to avoid making the last Appeal to different Judgments because that is absolutely unavoidable in the natural Constitution of Humane Affairs And therefore I never attempted as some Men have done to devolve the entire Power of judging upon the Judgment of one Party but onely supposing our different Respects and Obligations to these different Judgments to propound the safest and most moderate Principles upon which to setle and accommodate the Government of Humane Affairs and to adjust all matters capable of debate between them by such fair Proposals and upon such reasonable Principles that if the Parties concern'd will be ingenuous in their respective Capacities will effectually enough secure the common Peace and Happiness of Mankind if they will not the Publick Miseries and Calamities that ensue upon the default of either Party will be proportion'd to the degrees of their respective Transgressions and against them 't is not in my power to provide unless I could devest the Minds of Men of all Liberty of Judgment and Freedom of Will for whilst they remain 't is at their own choice whether they will follow the best and wisest advice in the World § 9. Thus if Magistrates fail on their part and Enact any Laws in defiance of the certain and apparent Laws of God from thence arise the Calamities of Tyranny and Persecution and against this evil there is no remedy but Patience and Prayers Divine Providence is Superiour to the Power of Soveraign Princes and superintends their Government of the World and therefore to God alone must we address our Complaints for relief against Cruelty and Oppression and if he judge it convenient for the interests of his Church and the purposes of Religion he will so order the Circumstances of Things and the Management of Affairs as to rescue them out of their Streights and Exigences The Hearts and the Scepters of Kings are subject to his Almighty Wisdom and he so disposes them as to make them comply with the Decrees of his uncontroulable Will and therefore whatever inconveniences may befal Good Men through the Folly or the Wickedness of Governours they must be patiently endured as certain Issues and unsearchable Designs of Divine Providence and we have no recourse for Succour or Deliverance but to his infinite Mercy and Goodness this is our only Support and Sanctuary and who can desire greater Safety than to be under his immediate Care and Protection And therefore there is nothing more unbecoming the Faith and the Profession of a Christian than to betake himself to violent and irregular Courses against the Inconveniences of Government 't is a direct and open affront to the Superintendency of Providence that has reserved this Prerogative to it self 't is our Duty to obey cheerfully or to suffer patiently and to leave all other Events of Things to his All-comprehensive Wisdom Mankind must be subject to Government no Government can be effectual unless it be Supreme and Absolute and therefore God has been pleased to enjoin us a full and entire Subjection to our lawful Superiours and as for what may ensue thereon we must leave to his wise and unerring Disposal and then certainly we may rest secure of a good Issue of Things So that if the Magistrate erre in his Judgment of the extent of his Authority and act beyond the Bounds of his lawful Jurisdiction 't is not in the Power of Subjects to redress or to remove the Mischiefs that must ensue upon his Government they must discharge their Duty and submit to their Fate and as for the Reformation of any Publick Miscarriages they must leave it entirely to the Will and the Wisdom of the Soveraign Power So that the material thing of which Princes ought to be careful is that their Laws cross not with the express Laws of God and this they may easily avoid if they will be upright and ingenuous and this if they will do they may as easily avoid all the Mischiefs and Inconveniences that may befal Men of peaceable Spirits through their default But as 't is their Duty not to transgress their own Bounds so on the other side 't is as much their Interest to restrain their Subjects from transgressing theirs and not suffer them to remonstrate to the Equity of their Laws unless when they can plead a clear undoubted pre-engagement to an higher Authority and they must not prostitute the Interests of the Republique and the Reverence of Government to the Niceties of every curious Imagination or the Cavils of every peevish Humour There is no end of trifling and unreasonable Pretences if once the common People are permitted to put in their Exceptions against the Publick Laws and what a weak and impertinent thing were the Power of Princes if it might be over-ruled by the Folly of the Multitude And how bravely would the World be govern'd if the Authority and Obligation of Laws must be left arbitrary to the Opinion of every vain and foolish Fellow And therefore in such cases the Allegation of a tender Conscience confutes it self and 't is but a soft and plausible word to qualifie a stubborn and contentious Humour and did not something else bear Men up against the force of Authority a weak Conscience has not boldness enough to oppose its own Power and Judgment against the Will of Superiours and the Wisdom of Publick Laws 't is not so imperious and impatient in its Pretensions but 't is if it really is what it pretends to be of a yielding a modest and a governable Temper apt and easie to receive any competent Satisfaction willing to comply with the Necessities of Government and the Interests of Publick Order and therefore when Men are zealous and confident in their disobedience to Authority and are forward upon all occasions to take offence at the Publick Laws whatever they fancy to themselves or pretend to others 't is a proud a malapert and an insolent Humour that affects to affront Authority and to raise Trophees to its Zeal and Courage by controuling the Decrees of Princes and trampling upon the Laws of Discipline And therefore nothing more imports the Publick Peace than to take down such bold and daring Spirits and their high Stomachs must be broken before they can be made fit Subjects of Civil Societies and fit Members of Bodies Politick Disorder and Disturbance is the natural Result of their Complexion and they cannot forbear to fret and annoy Authority with every peevish and unreasonable Conceit So that the bare Pretence of Tenderness of Conscience in defiance to the Commands of Authority is at once a bold Attempt and an impregnable Principle of Sedition for unless Men have lost their due sense of reverence and submission to Government they will not pretend it and when they do if their Pretence be admitted they are but encouraged to continue refractory in their disobedience and to make all the Laws of Discipline and Publick Order yield up their
censure of my Ignorance and I hope by this time he is satisfied 't is not absolutely impossible but that our Author may boldly affirm what he knows not how to prove and confidently undertake what he is not able to perform However a modest Man would either not have mentioned this Exception or would have made it good and not have presumed that the World should take his Brags for Arguments and take it for a reasonable Confutation of my Assertion because he says he can confute it aye that he can This is the most it amounts to and whether it be his Intention or no he might have said nothing to as much purpose as to say so much and no more But other Men would stand still as fast as this Man gallops and when he comes to the end of his career he is just where he was at the beginning § 12. And yet the next proof is just as wise and as wonderful as this viz. That this Power I have ascribed to the Civil Magistrate is not derived from Christ or any Grant of his but is antecedent to his coming or any Power given unto him or granted by him But what is all this to his Inference of the Magistrates absolute and immediate Power over Conscience That Power in which God vested Princes must be such as is compatible with his own Supremacy and that consists in his absolute and immediate Soveraignty over the Minds of his reasonable Creatures and therefore was in its own Nature uncapable of being granted away to any subordinate Authority But however you will conclude with him from this Principle that Magistrates owe no Allegiance and Subjection to the Scepter of Christ seeing they derive not their Authority from his Commission but were instated in its actual Possession before ever he was advanced to the Government of the Universe I say No for though they were vested in an ancient and original Right yet its Continuance ever since he commenced his Empire depends meerly upon his Confirmation in that whoever does not reverse a former Grant confirms it And therefore though they were impowered to govern the Church of God antecedent to our Saviours Supremacy yet that they are still intrusted with the same Authority they owe entirely to his Soveraign will and pleasure because 't is now in his Power to devest them of this or any other of their ancient Prerogatives so that seeing he has thought good to continue the Government of the World in the same state and posture he found it in Princes are not now less indebted to him for the Grant of their Imperial Power than if they had been at first instated in it by his immediate and and positive Commission And to this purpose did I discourse in that Paragraph out of which he has singled this Proposition viz. to shew how unreasonable it is for Men to demand an express Grant from our Saviour to Civil Magistrates for the Government of his Church when they were already establish't in the full exercise of this Jurisdiction by the right of Nature and the consent of Nations so that in stead of requiring this of us they are rather obliged to shew where he has expresly disrobed and aliened the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from the Royal Prerogative for if he have not there is no pretence or exception but that it still continues as inseparable a Right of the Supreme Magistrate in every Nation as if he had setled it upon him by his own positive and immediate Institution His next Exception is down-right Jugling viz. That I assert That Magistrates have a Power to make that a particular of the Divine Law which God had not made so and to introduce new Duties in the most important parts of Religion He knows these words have no relation in the place where they stand to matters of meer Religion and immediate Worship but are spoken onely of the Duties and Offices of Morality which I had before proved to be the main Designs and most essential Parts of Religion and likewise shewn that the Civil Magistrate was impower'd to introduce upon the Divine Law new Duties and Instances of Moral Vertue from whence I thought it but reasonable to conclude his Power over the outward Expressions of Religious Worship that are but circumstances or at highest but subordinate and less material Duties if compared to the great and important Vertues of Morality Whether my Proposition or my Inference be reasonable or no concerns not our present Enquiry our Author in this place puts in no Exception against them but whether this Quotation be either honestly or pertinently alledged against me do you judge when he could not but know that these words whether true or false could have no imaginable reference to matters of Religious Worship properly so called but were expresly limited to the Instances of Moral Goodness that yet he should produce them in this feat shuffling and uncertain manner of Expression onely that the common People might not understand them as they relate to my account and Notion of Religion i. e. as it takes in Duties of Morality but in the Vulgar sense of the word as it signifies Religious Worship This you see is wretched Troth but that which follows is glorious and undaunted Slander when he immediately subjoins to the former words So that there is a publick Conscience which Men are in things of a publick Concern relating to the Worship of God to attend unto and not to their own 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 This Inference being so immediately tack't to the former Proposition its unavoidable result must be this at least That as to the most important parts of Religion there is a publick Conscience to which Men are to attend and not to their own This is somewhat rank Doctrine and favours not a little of the Leviathan But yet how can I avoid it are not these my own words Though that I might deny yet am I content to confess that I have said something not much unlike them in the sixth Section of my last Chapter where in answer to the Pretence of a tender a scrupulous and an unsatisfied Conscience among many other things I have shewn that in doubtful and disputable Cases of a publick Concernment private Men are not properly sui Iuris and are not to be directed by their own Judgments nor determined by their own Wills but by the Commands and Determinations of the Publick Conscience Now does it not admirably become our Authors modesty to take this Assertion concerning such nice and petty things as are liable to doubt scruple and Disputation and couple it with another sentence above two hundred Pages distance that speaks of the most important parts of Religion as if they had been spoken upon the same occasion and related to the same matter thereby to abuse his vulgar and unwary Reader into a round
Objection upon the Truth and Reality of my Perswasion To what purpose does he tell us in the close of this Enquiry that we can give no other imaginable answer to it than that Men who plead for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience in the Worship of God according to his Word and the Light which he has given them therein have indeed no Conscience at all When this answer is so infinitely silly that we can scarce suppose any Man in his wits so extravagant as to pretend it and when there are other very pertinent Replys so easie and so obvious viz. That they may possibly have no Conscience at all whatever they pretend or at least such an one as is abused with foolish or debauch't with wicked Principles and so may plot or practise Sedition against the State under pretence or mistake of Conscience and for that reason ought not to be allowed to plead its Authority against the Commands of lawful Superiours In fine to what purpose does he so briskly taunt me for thwarting my own Principles because I have censured the impertinency of a needless Provision in an Act of Parliament I may obey the Law though I may be of a different Perswasion from the Lawgivers in an Opinion remote and impertinent to the matter of the Law it self nay I may condemn the wisdom of Enacting it and yet at the same time think my self to lie under an indispensable Obligation to obey it for the formal reason of its Obligatory Power as any Casuist will inform him is not the Judgment and Opinion of the Lawgiver but the Declaration of his Will and Pleasure There is abundance more of this slender stuff wherewith as himself brags he has loaded this Principle though alas were its Foundations never so weak and trembling it might securely enough support so light a Burthen and though it were really bottom'd upon the Sands there is but little danger that such a shallow Stream of Talk should overturn it so that though I stand upon such advantageous ground if I should descend to a strict and particular examination of all the Flaws and Follies of his Tattle yet they are so apparently false or impertinent or both and afford so little occasion for useful and material Discourse that I had rather chuse to forego my own advantage than spoil my Book and tire my Reader by insisting too tediously upon such empty trifles and dreams of shadows To conclude this Author is so accustomed to popular impertinency that he seems to hate severe Discourse as much as carnal Reason and both as much as Idolatry so that he onely prates when he should argue and inveighs when he should confute Give him what advantage you will he regards it not but jogs on in his road of talking and 't is no matter whether you take the right or wrong handle of the Question it may be either for any thing material that he has to except against it Nay you may suffer him to Limetwig you with Ink and Paper and gagg you with a Quill and put what words he pleases into your mouth and yet easily defend your self against all his faint assaults and impertinent Objections In so much that I durst undertake the defence of the thickest and most defenceless Impostures in the World against his weak and miserable way of Confutation And I doubt not but I could produce as strong and enforcing evidence for the Divine Original and Authority of the Alcoran as some body has for the Self-evidencing light and power of the holy Scriptures CHAP. IV. The Contents NO difference among the Ancients between Moral Vertue and Evangelical Grace The Vanity and Novelty of our late Spiritual Divinity Our Authors fond Tittle-tattle against my Scheme of Religion Religion is now the same for design and substance as it was in the state of Innocence The Gospel is chiefly design'd as a Restitution of the Law of Nature Our Duty to God best described by Gratitude Repentance Conversion Humiliation Self-denial Mortification Faith and other Duties of the Gospel proved to be Moral Vertues Our Author after his rate of cavilling would have quarrell'd our Saviour for his short account of the Duty of Man His intolerable slander in charging me of confining the Influence of the Spirit of God to the first Ages of the Church His prodigious impudence in ascribing all his own Follies to the Spirit of God The extraordinary concurrence of the Spirit proved it self by some evident Miracle the ordinary works in the same manner as if it were performed purely by the strength of our own Reason Our Author himself is not able to assign any real difference between Grace and Vertue Their meer distinguishing between them is destructive of the practice of all real goodness An account of the Mechanical Enthusiasm of their Spiritual Divinity Our Authors own account of their Spiritual Godliness is a clear instance of its Folly Moral Vertue is so far from being any hindrance that 't is the best preparative to Conversion It was not Moral Goodness but Immoral Godliness that kept off the Pharisees from closing with the Terms of the Gospel The Argument from the Magistrates Power over Moral Duties to his Power over Religious Worship clear'd and vindicated The difference assign'd for this purpose between the Laws of Nature and Revelation false and impertinent Their vain Resolution to find out particular Rules of instituted Worship in the Word of God is the Original of all their folly Religious Worship is subject to the Authority of Earthly Powers for the same Reason as Moral Vertue is A short account of some of our Authors fainter Essays § 1. HAving in the former Chapter given an account large enough of our Authors way of Confutation by shuffling Cavils and bold Calumnies I shall hereafter forbear to cloy the Reader or tire my self with any farther regard to such trifling Exceptions as are not capable of more useful and edifying Discourse and shall onely insist upon such particulars as may be considerable enough to recompence the pains of our Enquiry My design then in the next Chapter which our wise Objector excepts against was to draw a Parallel between matters of Religious Worship and Duties of Morality and to remonstrate to the World how they were equally subject to the Jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate And for a more ample Confirmation of this Argument I gave such an intelligible account of the Nature and Design of Religion as reduced all its parts and branches either to the Vertues or the Instruments of Moral Goodness From whence I concluded as I thought fairly enough That seeing Princes are allowed by the avowed Principles of all Mankind a Soveraign Power in reference to Moral Vertues that are the most material Duties of Religion 't is but reasonable they should be allowed at least the same Authority over the outward matters of Religious Worship that are but Circumstances of Religion or Instruments of Morality But our Author startles at the strangeness
Womb and again pass through all the scenes and workings of Conviction in which state of formation all new Converts must continue their appointed Time and when the days are accomplish'd they may then proceed to the next Operation of the Spirit i. e. to get a longing panting and breathing frame of soul upon which follows the proper season of Delivery and they may then break loose from the Enclosures of the spirit of Bondage and creep out from those dark Retirements wherein the Law detein'd them into the Light of the Gospel and the Liberty of the spirit of Adoption But of this perhaps our Author may understand more before he and I part in the mean time let us follow our present Chase and we shall have pleasant sport enough for never did wily Reynard shew greater variety of shifts windings and doublings than this subtle Disputant § 2. The Antichristian Errors of this Chapter he has reduced to four general heads the first whereof he confesseth to be a great and important Truth viz. that Moral Vertue consists in the observance of the Laws of Nature and the Dictates of Right Reason and therefore he only transcribes my Proof and Account of the Reasonableness of the Assertion and repeats it again in his own obscure Words and flat Expressions and so immediately proceeds to the second viz That the substance yea the whole of Religion consists in moral vertues and to prove it he repeats that short Scheme that I have drawn up of the most material parts and branches of Religion and in answer to it he first talks and then objects He wishes I would give him a summary of the Credenda of my Religion as I have done of its Agenda And so I will when I shall think my self obliged to write impertinently for his humour but should I be so civil as to gratifie him in this Request though perhaps the positive Articles of my Belief are not altogether so numerous as his Systematick Orthodoxes nor my Creed so bulky as his gross Bodies of Dutch-divinity Yet I could give him in such a large Negative Confession of Faith as would both satisfie and make him repent his Curiosity In the next place he tells us the ten Commandments would have done twice as well on this occasion But 't is no disparagement to my Account of Religion if it be but half as good as the ten Commandments though I am apt to believe the Decalogue was never intended for a perfect Systeme of the Moral Law I cannot imagine that by thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image is meant thou shalt not institute Symbolical Ceremonies or that by Thou shalt not murther Alms and fraternal Correption are enjoyned nor can I fancy that when only one Particular is express'd twenty more are intended that may any way be reduced to it by strein'd and far-fetch'd Analogies But if we add the Explication of the Church-Catechism for which our Author has no doubt a mighty fondness it would make up a much more perfect Scheme of Religion than what I have represented I confess 't is contrived with a great deal of wisdom and judgment and its Exposition is easie natural and useful and not made out by forced and uncertain Deductions and therefore has admirably attain'd the End it aimed at which is chiefly a plain and intelligible Account of the main scope and intent of the Decalogue and not an intire Institution of Christian Theology But upon this he takes a civil and seasonable occasion to remark that he fears the very Catechism it self may ere long be esteemed Phanatical though if it should meet with such ill Usage it would not be much worse treated than it was ere long when it was esteemed Popish However his Fears are of no more force than his Arguments they are equally wise and reasonable and prove nothing but his Ill-nature or something worse And now to all this he subjoyns a tedious story of a foolish and half-witted fellow that from this Opinion that all Religion consists in Morality proceeded to a full Renunciation of the Gospel If either the man himself had made good this Consequence or our Author for him this tale might have been of more use than all his Arguments that is it might have been to the purpose but otherwise 't is as meer Tittle-tattle as when he tells us the Papists make use of our Pleas for Government in behalf of their Tyranny and Usurpation I can no more prevent some men from streining absurd Conclusions from the wisest and most Reasonable Premisses than I can hinder others from preaching Treason or Blasphemy from the divine Oracles But all this is no more than Skirmish the main Battel follows and he draws up all his Forces in three Objections i. e. in repeating the same Objection three times 1. My Representation of Religion is suited to the state of Innocence 2. It carries in it neither supposition nor assertion of sin 3. It omits some of the most important duties of the Christian Religion Repentance Humiliation Godly sorrow c. Whereas its being suited to the state of Innocence it s not implying a supposition of sin and its omitting the duty of Repentance is apparently one and the same thing For 't is nothing but meerly a supposition of sin that makes our present Condition differ from the state of Innocence and that infers the necessity of Repentance and therefore in answer to this great Objection in its united strength I humbly crave leave to remonstrate that Religion for the substance and main design of it which is the only thing I designed to represent is the same now as it was in the state of Innocence For as then the whole duty of man consisted in the Practice of all those moral Vertues that arose from his natural Relation to God and man so all that is super-induced upon us since the Fall is nothing but helps and contrivances to supply our natural defects and recover our decayed Powers and restore us to a better ability to discharge those duties we stand engaged to by the Law of our Nature and the design of our Creation So that the Christian Institution is not for the substance of it any new Religion but only a more perfect digest of the Eternal Rules of Nature and Right Reason For it commands nothing but what is some way suitable to and perfective of Rational Beings and all its duties are either Instances or Instruments of moral Goodness it prescribes no new rules and proportions of Morality and all its additions to the Eternal and Unchangeable Laws of Nature are but only means and Instruments to discover their Obligation and improve their Practice in the World All men I think are agreed that the real end of Religion is the Happiness and Perfection of Mankind and this end is obtain'd by living up to the Dictates of Reason and according to the Laws of Nature which the Gospel has framed into
positive Precepts because they are in themselves so essentially serviceable to the design of our Creation And therefore our Saviour came not into the world to give any new Precepts of moral goodness but only to retrive the old Rules of Nature from the evil Customs of the World and to reinforce their Obligation by endearing our duty with better Promises and urging our Obedience upon severer Penalties And as the Gospel is nothing but a Restitution of the Religion of Nature so are all its positive Commands and instituted duties either mediately or immediately subservient to that end Thus the Sacraments though they are matters of pure Institution yet are they of a subordinate Usefulness and design'd only for the greater advantage and Improvement of moral Righteousness For as the Gospel is the Restitution of the Law of Nature so are these outward Rites and Solemnities a great security of the Gospel they are solemn engagements and stipulations of obedience to all its Commands and are appointed to express and signifie our grateful sense of Gods goodness in the Redemption of the World and our serious Resolutions of performing the Conditions of this new Contract and Entercourse with mankind So that though they are duties of a prime importance in the Christian Religion 't is not because they are in themselves matters of any Essential Goodness but because of that peculiar Relation they have to the very being and the whole design of its Institution Forasmuch as he that establish'd this Covenant requires of all that are willing to own and submit to its Conditions to profess and avow their Assent to it by these Rites and Instruments of stipulation so that to refuse their Use is interpreted the same thing as to reject the whole Religion But if the entire Usefulness of these and any other instituted Mysteries consists in their great subserviency to the designs of the Gospel and if the great design of the Gospel consists in the Restitution of the Law of Nature and the advancement of all kinds of Moral Goodness then does it naturally resolve it self into that short Analysis I have given of Religion and whether we suppose the Apostasie of Mankind or suppose it not every thing that appertains to it will in the last issue of things prove either a part or an instrument of Moral Vertue § 3. But we must proceed to particulars In the first place Gratitude is a very imperfect description of Natural Religion for says he it has respect onely to Gods Benefits and not to his Nature and therefore omits all those Duties that are eternally necessary upon the Consideration of himself such as fear love trust affiance Perhaps this word may not in its rigorous acceptation express all the distinct parts and duties of Religion yet the Definition that I immediately subjoin'd to explain its meaning might abundantly have prevented this Cavil were not our Author resolved to draw his saw upon words viz. A thankful and humble temper of Mind arising from a sense of Gods Greatness in himself and his Goodness to us And the truth is I know not any one Term that so fully expresses that Duty and Homage we owe to God as this of Gratitude For by what other Name soever we may call it this will be its main and most Fundamental Ingredient and therefore 't is more pertinent to describe its Nature by that than by any other Property that is more remote and less material Because the Divine Bounty is the first Reason of our Obligation to Divine Worship in that natural Justice obliges every Man to a grateful and ingenuous sense of Favours and Benefits and therefore God being the sole Author of our Beings and our Happiness that ought without any farther regard to affect our Minds with worthy resentments of his love and kindness and this is all that which is properly exprest by the word Piety which in its genuine acceptation denotes a grateful and observant temper and behaviour towards Benefactors and for that cause it was made use of as the most proper Expression of that Duty that is owing from Children to Parents but because God by reason of the eminency of his Bounty more peculiarly deserves our Respect and Observation 't is in a more signal and remarkable sense appropriated to him so that Gratitude is the first property and radical Ingredient of Religion and all its other Acts and Offices are but secondary and consequential and that Veneration we give the Divine Majesty for the excellency of his Nature and Attributes follows that Gratitude we owe him for the Communication of his Bounty and Goodness 'T is this that brings us to a knowledge of all his other Endowments 't is this that endears his Nature to us and from this result all those Duties we owe him upon the account of his own Perfections and by that experience we have of his Bounty and by that knowledge we have of his other Attributes into which we are led by this experience come we to be obliged to trust and affiance in him so that Gratitude expresly implies all the Acts and Offices of Religion and though it chiefly denotes its prime and most essential Duty yet in that it fully expresses the Reason and Original Obligation of all other parts of Religious Worship But in the next place he reckons up Repentance Conversion Conviction of Sin Humiliation Godly Sorrow as deficient Graces in my Scheme and Duties peculiar to the Gospel Though as for Repentance what is it but an exchange of vicious customs of Life for an habitual course of Vertue I will allow it to be a new species of Duty in the Christian Religion when he can inform me what Men repent of beside their Vices and what they reform in their Repentance beside their Moral Iniquities it has neither end nor object but Moral Vertue and is onely another word peculiarly appropriated to signifie its first beginnings And as for Conversion the next deficient 't is co-incident with Repentance and he will find it no less difficult to discover any difference between them than between Grace and Vertue And as for the other remaining Graces of the Gospel Conviction Humiliation Godly Sorrow and he might as well have added Compunction Self-abhorrency Self-despair and threescore words more that are frequent in their mouths they are all but different Expressions of the same thing and are either parts or concomitant Circumstances of Repentance After so crude and careless a rate does this Man of Words pour forth his talk In the next rank comes in Self-denial a Readiness to bear the Cross and Mortification as new Laws of Religion But as for Self-denial 't is nothing else than to restrain our appetites within the limits of Nature and to sacrifice our brutish Pleasures to the interests of Vertue As for a Readiness to bear the Cross 't is nothing but a constant and generous Loyalty to the Doctrine of the Gospel and a Resolution to suffer any thing
rather than betray or forsake so excellent an Institution and therefore its peculiar excellency consisting in the goodness of its Moral Precepts to continue faithful to that is the same thing as to be constant and upright to the best Principles of Vertue And lastly as for Mortification 't is an exercise of Moral Philosophy and the very formality of Moral Vertue and 't is nothing else but to subdue our sensual appetites and affections to our superiour faculties in the methods of Reason and prudent Discipline But the main instance of defect is that dear and darling Article of the Religion of Sinners as our Author words it Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And here I must confess as they have mistaken the Nature and Notion of this Grace 't is neither Vertue nor Vertues Friend though in its plain and primitive account 't is evidently both For I know but two acceptations of it in the Scripture 1. Either as it signifies a serious and an hearty assent to the Divine Authority of the Doctrine of the Gospel and so it has a mighty force to engage as serious and hearty obedience to all its Precepts For what more effectual and irresistible Inducements can Men have to an Holy Life than a firm Belief of the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel This then is the peculiar excellency of the Christian Faith viz. it s mighty Influence upon a Christian Life 2. Or else as it signifies a Trust and Reliance upon the Goodness of God and the Merits of Christ for the expiation of our sins and the acceptance of our Persons upon the Performance of the Conditions of the new Covenant And thus it is an act of that Moral Worship of God of which we have already discoursed For though the Object of it be particular and relates to our Saviours Death and Passion yet the Reason of it is Natural and relates to the Essential Truth and Goodness of God upon his Declaration and Engagement to accept the Sufferings of his Son as an Atonement and Satisfaction for the Sins of the World And therefore into this we must resolve the Vertue and Morality of the Grace of Faith viz. it s worthy Opinion of and strong Confidence in Gods Essential Truth and Goodness And our Author himself though upon what grounds I know not esteems it a part of the Natural and Moral Worship of God and so I remember does I. O. in that notable Treatise of distinct Communion with each Person of the Trinity distinctly And now I hope from all these Premises you are sufficiently satisfied that the supposition of sin does not bring in any new Religion but onely makes new Circumstances and Names of old Things and requires new helps and advantages to improve our Powers and to encourage our Endeavours And thus is the Law of Grace nothing but the Restitution of the Law of Nature all the prime Duties it prescribes are but Results and Pursuances of our Natural Obligations and all its additional Institutions are but Helps and Assistances to encourage and secure their Performance To conclude had this Man been a Pharisee in our Saviours time how pertly would he have taunted him for reducing the whole Duty of Man to two Heads Love the Lord with all thy Heart and Love thy Neighbour as thy self What Sir have we not six hundred and thirteen Precepts in our Law are there not twelve Houses of Affirmative and as many of Negative Commandments and are there not large Catalogues of particular Laws ranged under each of these general Heads and must all saving onely two be revers't for your pleasure If this be all to what purpose are our Phylacteries Once I remember you reproved us for making them so large now you had best quarrel us for making them at all Is this to fill up the Law of Moses as you pretend to abridge his whole Volume into a single Text I must needs say that I look upon this as the rudest most imperfect and weakest Scheme of the Iewish Religion that ever yet I saw so far from comprising an Induction of all Particulars belonging to it that there is nothing in it that is constitutive of the Iewish Religion as such at all c. Now if we could suppose our Saviour would have vouchsafed to reply to such a prating and impertinent Rabbi what other answer can we suppose he would have return'd than that all the other Commandments how numerous soever are but so many Instances of these under various Denominations arising from emergent Respects and Circumstances of things And how infinite soever the particular Laws of Life may be they are but Prosecutions of these general Laws of Nature and result from those Obligations we lie under from our natural Relation to God and to Man and 't is for this reason that I define Love to be the fulfilling of the whole Law because all other Commands are but several Instruments or Expressions of this Duty and love to your Neighbour signifies every thing whereby you may be useful and beneficial to Mankind But having in his own Fancy for there he does wondrous feats demolish't my frame of Religion he proceeds to erect a new Model of his own but whether coherent or not concerns not my Enquiry my business is to defend my own Discourse and not to run after every Bubble of his blowing Onely you may observe that whereas I design'd to represent the shortest and most comprehensive Scheme of the practical Duties of Religion that I could contrive the greatest part of his Hypothesis is made up of Articles of meer Belief which I purposely omitted as wholly impertinent to the matter and design of my Enquiry and the other Materials that he has cast in relating to practice are so crudely and confusedly hudled together that they rather make a heap of Rubbish than any consistent Fabrick of things insomuch that one single Branch of his Analysis comprehends all the rest viz. An universal Observance of the whole Will and all the Commands of God It would be an admirable way no doubt to represent an exact Anatomy of all the parts of an Humane Body to lay the Body it self before you and onely tell you that is it No Man doubts whether Religion consists in an universal Obedience to all the Commands of God and yet should I assert it I know who would contradict it and object its being impossible but what these particular Commands are and what the manner of their dependence upon and connexion to each other Some men you see cannot avoid running into Absurdities when it does them no service § 4. My third Heresie is no less than that there is no actual Concurrence of present Grace enabling men to perform the duties or to exercise the vertues of moral goodness And now he returns to his old Vomit of Calumny and Falsification here he is upon his own dunghil and therefore here he crows and insults and I am catechised like any
equally subject to the decisions and determinations of the Civil Power I should rather have concluded and so I am sure any wise Governour that seeing the Laws of Nature are so bravely vouch'd by the common consent and suffrage of Mankind and seeing 't is impossible men should mistake in them unless they will do it wilfully let them in Gods name please their fancies and themselves in a Liberty of Practice and Perswasion concerning them because here there is little or no hazard of any dangerous mistake But seeing as to what concerns the Worship of God they are all at variance and seeing there is no such evidence in these things no such common suffrage about them as to free any absolutely from failings and mistakes so that in respect of them and not of the other lies the principal danger of miscarrying I will be sure to have a more watchful and vigilant eye to their due order and setlement here is danger of Schisms and Dissentions and men will run into Parties and differences about uncertain and ambiguous things and above all things I must be careful to prevent religious Factions these of all others are incomparably the most dangerous and therefore here I will not fail to interpose the utmost of my care and power where-ever I neglect it and if any man will be so bold and fool-hardy as to affront my Judgment and Determination of things so uncertain with his own private and doubtful perswasions let him take what follows And so I have brought our Disputer to my old Advantage with which he dares no more venture to close than with a Cornish hug viz. That 't is but reasonable and necessary too for modest and peaceable Subjects to submit in all Matters capable of doubt and uncertainty to the determinations of their Lawful Superiours and therefore if this be the case of the Rules of Instituted Worship as is pretended this is so far from abridging the Jurisdiction of the Civil Power over their disposal that 't is the very Reason why they should be entirely subject to and determinable by the Judgment and discretion of Supreme Authority 2. There is as great a variety and uncertainty of Opinion concerning the Laws of Nature as there is concerning those of Institution and about them the Errors of publick Government have always been as many and much more pernicious and there is scarce one Instance of Natures Laws that has not been some where or other revers'd by National Constitutions Has not our Author read of Laws for he is sans doubt a man of Reading though I dare not vouch for his Learning and Ingenuity that reward Thieves and Pyrates that prostitute virgin Brides to the publick Lust that bind Children to murder their decrepit Parents that permit Sons to commit Incest with nay that enjoyn them to marry their own Mothers Numberless are the Stories of the debauch'd and accursed Laws of the horrible and unnatural Customs of the barbarous Nations in the World So that however Moral Vertues may be establish'd among Mankind by the Light of Nature Yet alas that is infinitely too weak and dim to preserve men from the numberless mistakes of Error and Ignorance And 't is not a little strange to me that our Author when he has so strong an Opinion of the woful decay and utter dissolution of all that was good in humane Nature by the fall of Adam should yet apprehend the Dictates of so debauch'd and corrupted a Principle to make a clearer discovery of the duty of Mankind than the express Revelation of God himself especially when this was chiefly intended to supply and repair the defects of the Light of Nature For in the last and real Issue of things the best discovery and the strongest Obligation of all Natures Laws will be found to depend on their positive Institution The Gospel is the only perfect and accurate Systeme of the Laws of Nature it has not omitted any the least part of our Duty and what it has not enjoyn'd is no part either of the Law of Revelation or of the Law of Nature And in truth were it not for the collected Body of the Laws of Christianity at what a woful loss should we be for an exact Catalogue of the Laws of Nature And it would be an infinitely vain attempt to find out their set and certain Number for alas that must vary according to the unconceivable difference of mens Capacities and Apprehensions Persons of greater sagacity and more improved Reasons would be able to perceive many moral Notices of things that would never have occurr'd to the Thoughts of ruder and more illiterate People and therefore our safest as well as our shortest way to discover their Nature and Obligation is without any more ado to search the Records of all Gods Revelations to Mankind upon which their greatest certainty and by consequence their chiefest Obligation depends So little does this this man consider what he talks when he ascribes so much evidence to the Rules of moral Goodness beyond the duty of Institution when Institution is incomparably their greatest and most pregnant Evidence Nay what is worse than all the rest after all this Noise of instituted Worship nothing will ever be found concerned in it save only the two Sacraments they are the only matters of outward Worship prescribed in the Gospel and thus has he run himself into his old Premunire and so is brought under an Obligation to assign any other particular Rituals and Ceremonies of External Religion injoin'd and determined in the Word of God a thing of which they much and often talk but never offer to prove or specifie And the truth is here lies the main mystery of all their Impertinencies in Disputes of this nature that they are resolved to find some things in the Holy Scriptures which 't is impossible for the wit of Man to discover there and hence all this Clamour concerning the particular Rules of instituted Worship in the Word of God though when they come to consult it there is nothing more determined than barely the two Sacraments But this will not serve their turn they must and will have a Ius Divinum for their own singular fancies and fashions and therefore away they fling and about they beat and no passage of Holy Writ shall be left unransackt for Proofs and Texts to their purpose And to this end they find out some Words and Expressions that may possibly seem to carry some resemblance to their Prejudices and ungrounded Conceits and then by what violent and strein'd Analogies will they force them to countenance their Dreams and by what odd and impertinent methods will they pack and huddle Scriptures together till they seem to chime to the tune of their own foolish Imaginations And you would bless your self to consider what spiritual ways of arguing they have of late invented in Opposition to common Sense and natural Reason to justifie their own phantastick and unwarrantable Hypotheses of things but
Civil Power as far as they concern the ends and interests of Publick Tranquillity though how far that may reach as it was here asserted so it was in the following Chapters more largely proved and stated However 't is apparent from the manifest scope and the last issue of my whole Discourse that I stand not obliged to ascribe any more absolute Power to the Civil Magistrate than what is necessary to warrant that Authority they exercise in prescribing those Rites and Ceremonies of Worship that are injoin'd and practised in the Church of England that is all I contend for at present and will as for what concerns this Dispute be content to lop off any other Branches of their Jurisdiction that relate not to this Enquiry And if this cannot be justified unless it be granted that the Commands of Soveraign Power must always over-rule all Obligations of Conscience then I confess I must submit to this disadvantage that this Man would impose upon me but if it can 't is no part either of my Duty or my Interest to assert any thing that is neither true in it self or pertinent to my purpose But whether it can or cannot I have already sufficiently accounted for both in that Treatise and in this Rejoinder For what our Author would here charge upon me as my Duty is no more than what he has heretofore charged upon me as my Doctrine viz. That the Magistrate has Power to bind the Consciences of his Subjects to observe what is by him appointed to be professed and observed in Religion and nothing else are they to observe making it their Duty in Conscience so to do and the highest crime or sin to do any thing to the contrary and whatever the precise truth in these matters be or whatever be the apprehensions of their own Consciences concerning them The falshood of which horrid Calumny I have there baffled with so much evidence and reproved with so much severity that after that it were an affront to the Readers Understanding to warn him against every Repetition of so foul and groundless a slander though it is the Burthen of every Page § 2. In the next Paragraph I proceeded to account for the nature and extent of Christian Liberty where I both founded our Right to it upon this natural and inward Freedom of our Minds and also proved it to be sometimes coincident with it But says our Nicodemus for he is very thick of Understanding when he pleases How can these things be When Christian Liberty as I have stated it is a priviledge whereas Liberty of Conscience is common unto all Mankind This Liberty is necessary unto Humane Nature and cannot be divested of it and so it is not a priviledge that includes a specialty in it To this I answer That Natural Liberty is a freedom of the Mind and Judgment from all Humane Laws in general and Christian Liberty is the same freedom from the Mosaick Law in particular which because it was bound upon the Jews by virtue of a Divine Authority it was a restraint not onely upon their Practices but upon their Minds and Consciences and prescribed to their inward Thoughts and Opinions as well as their outward Actions they had no Liberty to judge of their Goodness but were bound to submit their Understandings to the Wisdom of God And this is the main difference between the Obligation of Divine and Humane Laws that these reach onely to our Wills and those affect our Judgments and determine our Apprehensions to whatsoever they command our Obedience and we are bound to acquiesce in the Counsels of God though we understand not their Reasons and therefore whatever Law comes with the impress of Divine Authority it bears down all before it and supersedes all the weak Disputes and Reasonings of our little Understandings and as long as we are assured it proceeds from God that alone without any farther enquiry gives our Minds infinite satisfaction of its Wisdom and Goodness So that during the whole Period of the Mosaick Institution all freedom of Judgment in reference to the particular Commands of his Law was retrenched by the Authority of God but when their Obligation was repeal'd and the impress of his Authority was taken off then did the things themselves return of their own accord to the indifferency of their own Natures and so were restored to the Judgment of the Minds of Men and therefore though Christian Liberty be a Priviledge with a specialty yet 't is a Branch of that Liberty that is natural to Mankind in that 't is nothing but a Restauration of the Mind of Man from the restraints of the Law of Moses to its native freedom which though it cannot be devested by any Humane Power yet it may then was and always is abridged by Divine Commands in that they pass an equal Obligation upon the Judgments and the Practices of Men upon which account alone all matters of the Law of God are absolutely exempt both from our Natural and our Christian Liberty but when he is pleased to reverse his own Obligation and to leave things to their Original indifferency that is a restitution to our natural Liberty and that is our Christian Liberty But for a more full and exact Account of the nature and true signification of this Pretence 't is necessary to examine how 't is stated in the Word of God and as it is there discoursed of it is certain it relates meerly to those Priviledges that are granted or restored to the minds of men by the Repeal and Abrogation of the Law of Moses The whole Case whereof is plainly this This Law was establish'd in the Jewish Common-wealth by Divine Authority and was the only Covenant and Revelation of God to mankind that was at first consign'd with mighty Miracles and ratified to after-Ages with their great Sacrament of Circumcision upon which Accounts the Jews concluded it to be of an Eternal and Immutable Obligation But God sends his Son into the World to take down this whole frame and fabrick of the Mosaick Religion and in its stead to set up a better and more manly Institution of things to repeal the Laws and Obligations of the old Covenant and to govern his Church by new measures of Duty and new Conditions of Obedience And this is properly the Priviledge of Christian Liberty and it comprehends all the peculiar Advantages and Exemptions granted to mankind by vertue of the Christian Institution It is a deliverance from the Dominion of Sin from the Curse of the Law from the severity of a Covenant of Works and from the Yoke of Ceremonial observances These are the matters of our Christian Liberty and those Doctrines that tend to bring us under any of these old Fetters and hard services are attempts of Jewish Bondage And this was the plain state of the Question in the Apostolical Age and the whole dispute of Christian Liberty was only a Controversie between the Jews and the Christians concerning
the Repeal or the Perpetuity of Moses Law And all the Discourses we meet with in the Writings of the Apostles upon this subject relate purely to the abrogation of the Mosaick Institution And all their Exhortations to the Primitive Christians to stand stifly upon their Priviledges were to perswade them not to suffer themselves to be abused into a slavish opinion of the Eternity and unalterable Obligation of the Law of Moses but to rest assured that the Gospel had rescinded all the positive and ceremonial Commands of the Jews that the things themselves were returned to their native Indifferency and by consequence that they were at liberty from their observance any former Law or Precept to the contrary notwithstanding Well then the precise Notion of Christian Liberty consists in the rescue of the Consciences of men from the divine Imposition of the Yoke of Moses and therefore 't is not to be pretended against any Restraints whatsoever that do not challenge an absolute and indispensable obligation over the Consciences of men by vertue of a divine Authority So that Subjects are not to be permitted to put in this Pretence in bar of any Impositions of our lawful Superiours because it relates purely to our immediate duty and entercourse with God and is not in the least concern'd in our Engagements and Relations to men And upon this Account is it that St. Paul so smartly encourageth the Galatians to stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free and not to be entangled again with the Yoke of Bondage because if they are circumcised Christ shall profit them nothing in that they are Debtors to keep the whole Law For if the Seal of Circumcision be still in force then is not the Law disannull'd of which this is the Sacrament and the Sanction but if the Law be not disannull'd then are you still under an obligation to the same Obedience as was required by the Conditions of the old Covenant and so by consequence forfeit all the Favours and Benefits of the new But setting aside the necessity of Circumcision by vertue of a divine Command then its use was no Intrenchment upon Christian Liberty and therefore though this blessed Apostle declaimed with so much zeal and vehemence against its use and continuance out of respect to the obligatory Power of the Law of Moses yet upon other Grounds and for different Purposes he was content to condescend to its practice and observation as is notorious in the Circumcision of Timothy So that you see 't is apparent his Christian Liberty consisted not in an indispensable forbearance of Circumcision for so to have used it in any Case had been a manifest Forfeiture of his Priviledge and violation of his Duty but only in not doing it with an opinion of its Necessity by reason of the perpetual obligation of the Law of Moses This is the plain and the only Account of Christian Liberty in the holy Scriptures and therefore these men do but prate their own obstinate presumptions whilst they persist in this vulgar Clamour till they can either prove that we pretend to any divine Authority for our Ecclesiastical Institutions or that Christian Liberty is of any concernment in any Cases that pretend not to divine Authority These things if they will undertake to make good they may talk to our Purpose but otherwise they will but talk to their own and that is to none at all § 3. And this discovers the Impertinency of our Authors next demand what I mean by the Restauration of the mind to its natural Priviledge If the Priviledge of the mind in its condition of natural Purity it is false if any priviledge of the mind in its corrupt Condition it is no less untrue Why so Because in things of this Nature the mind is in Bondage and not capable of Liberty I cannot divine what things he here intends nor of what Concernment the Purity and Corruption of humane Nature is to this enquiry the only Liberty I treated of was an exemption from the Obligatory Power of the Ceremonial Institutions of Moses so that the Restauration of the mind to its natural Priviledge can signifie nothing else than its being rescued from the Yoke Bondage of positive arbitrary Laws to be govern'd by the Laws and Dictates of its own Nature And what Relation this has to our natural Purity or Corruption is past my skill to understand And so is the Reason he subjoyns to confirm his Assertion no better than a grave and profound Piece of Non-sense For it is a thing ridiculous to confound the meer natural Liberty of our wills which is an Affection inseparable from that Faculty with a moral or spiritual Liberty of mind relating unto God and his Worship It is so but what in the name of Sphinx is this to our Enquiry what has Liberty from the Law of Moses to do with Liberty of will 't is perfect Riddle to me where either the force or the sense of the Argument lies But free-will is an old word of Contention and the bare mention of it is enough to amuse his unlearned Readers and to make them suspect some depth of Learning or Reason that their shallow Capacities are not able to fathom And if the Argument have any subtilty there it lies But his bravest and most serviceable Artifice is still behind when an Argument is neither to be withstood nor avoided he can slur its force and evidence by perverting it and entertain his Reader by imposing a false sense upon it when he is not able to confute the true one Thus he tells us That this whole Paragraph runs upon no small mistake namely that the Yoke of Mosaical Institutions consisted in their Imposition on the minds and judgments of men with an Opinion of the Antecedent Necessity of them This indeed is somewhat strange Divinity and not altogether uncapable of Confutation especially as to my particular Case it being such a square Contradiction to that account I have given of the matters of the Ceremonial Law viz. That they were things indifferent in their own Natures that the Necessity of their Use and Exercise was superinduced upon them purely by vertue of a divine positive Command that this being rescinded their Necessity immediately ceased and they return to the state of their original Indifferency to be governed as Circumstances should require and prudence direct so that it is evident I have denied the matters of the Ceremonial Law to have been at all necessary to be observed from their own Intrinsick Nature antecedent to their positive Institution and therefore if any where else I have affirmed it I have no way to avoid the charge of speaking Daggers and Contradictions But says he that this is my sense intended is evident from the Conclusion of this Paragraph viz. that whatever and in what matters soever our Superiours impose upon us it is no intrenchment upon our Christian Liberty provided it be not imposed
with an opinion of the antecedent Necessity of the thing it self Now from hence how natural is it to conclude that the Yoke of the Mosaical Institutions consisted in their Imposition on the minds of men with an Opinion of their necessity antecedent to that Imposition when Heaven and Earth stand not at a wider distance than these Propositions No Train of Consequences nothing but Iacobs Ladder unless our Author be able to fly can ever convey him from one to the other And if he shall undertake to make good the Logick of his Conclusion I will cross my self at his Confidence but if he shall perform it I will fall down and worship for to me it would be Prodigie and Miracle and that man need not in my opinion despair of removing Mountains who thinks he can prove that because humane Authority cannot impair the Liberty of our minds but by pretence of an antecedent Obligation to its Commands that therefore when God himself abridges it he must do it by vertue of some authoritative obligation antecedent to his own Impositions when his authority is the first Fountain and original Reason of all Obligations and therefore 't is an infinite contradiction to the nature of things to talk of any Authority antecedent or superiour to the divine Law And this is the evident Reason of my Conclusion that the Nature of our internal Liberty relates to the power of God over the minds of men and so is in its self uncapable of being restrain'd or imposed upon by any other Jurisdiction and therefore whatever restraints our Superiours may lay upon our Practices provided they do not bind us with an Opinion of some necessity stamp't upon the things themselves antecedent to their Commands that is no abatement to the inward Liberty of our minds which nothing can abridge but the Authority of God himself and therefore unless they pretend an antecedent and authoritative Obligation tied upon the Consciences of men by his own immediate and explicite Command whatever they may bind upon them by virtue of their own Authority though it may be blameable upon other accounts yet it cannot be charged of offering violence to the Rights of Christian Liberty So that though their Laws cannot of themselves restrain it unless by pretence of an antecedent Necessity imprinted upon the things themselves by virtue of a Divine Command yet the Laws of God may because they are the formal Reason of their restraint and the ground of their necessity But he adds That when St. Peter disputes against the Mosaick Rites and calls them a Yoke which neither they nor their Fathers-were able to bear and St. Paul chargeth Believers to stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free they respect onely Mens practice with regard unto an Authoritative Obligation thereunto which they pleaded to be now expired and removed Whereby however he intends to shuffle with his vulgar Reader he apparently grants all that is desired or demanded viz. That all the Apostolical Discourses upon this subject respect not the bare practice of these things but their practice upon the account of the Authoritative Obligation of the Law of Moses for nothing less was pretended by the Jews so that the onely thing that made them prejudicial to the Claims of Christian Liberty was an Opinion of their necessity by virtue of that antecedent Obligation which being repeal'd their practice upon other grounds and reasons was not thought to infringe or check with the Rights and Priviledges of the Gospel And for this we have the unquestionable warrant of their own Examples when they not onely submitted to Restraints in the Exercise of their own Liberty but prescribed it in some Cases and Circumstances as a Duty to other Christians that they would take heed lest their Liberty should become a stumbling block to them that are weak Though they were intirely free from any Obligation tied upon them by virtue of the Law of Moses yet did St. Paul se◠fresh restraints upon them by virtue of his Apostolical Authority And now were it not strange that Men should be bound to yield more to the humour of a peevish Jew than to the Commands of a Christian Magistrate For the first ground and reason of his imposing their Obligation was then nothing but meer prudence and condescension to their folly but in our case 't is matter of Duty and Obedience For in the days of the Apostles nothing less was pleaded by the Jewish Christians for the necessity of their Ceremonies than the unchangeable Obligation of the Law of Moses and yet for the sake of peace they would submit so far to their strong Prejudices as outwardly to comply with their weak demands though it were with some hazard of forfeiting their Christian Liberty for it was not impossible but that their complyance might have confirmed the Jews in their obstinacy and have drawn in the Gentiles to an imitation of their example and so have begun a Prescription for the necessary observance of the Law of Moses to all Ages of the Church of Christ. Whereas in our case the danger of that pretence is as much abolish't as Circumcision it self it being a granted and establish't truth among all the dissenting Parties of Christendom unless we may except the Judaising Sabbatarians who do somewhat more than squint toward Moses that the Ceremonial Law is for ever rescinded to all intents and purposes and no Magistrate pretends a Power of imposing things indifferent by virtue of a Divine and perpetual Obligation but onely by force of a transient and temporary Institution of Humane Authority for the ends of Discipline the Uniformity of Worship and the security of Government § 4. And therefore our Authors next Inference is either a woful impertinence to our present Enquiry or a bold Affront and Calumny to the publick Declarations of our Church when he concludes That if Christian Liberty be of force enough to free us from the necessary practice of indifferent things instituted by God it is at least of equal efficacy to exempt us from the necessary practice of things imposed on us in the Worship of God by Men. This implies as if the Church of England imposed the same necessity upon its own Determinations as upon the positive Laws of God notwithstanding it so industriously disclaims all Divine Impositions either for Legal or Evangelical Ceremonies and so expresly declares all its own Institutions to bind onely with an humane temporary and changeable Obligation Whereas they for so it still happens that their dearest Pretences are always the strongest and most unhappy Objections against themselves would needs obtrude upon us their own Fancies and singular Conceits as our Saviours own Commands and Institutions and call their separation from the Church of England their departure from Antichristian Idolatries and Whoredoms to the chastity of Worship and the purity of Gospel-Ordinances And as we are informed by I. O. they who hold Communion with Christ are
careful to admit and practise nothing in the Worship of God unless it comes in his Name and with Thus saith the Lord Iesus You know how many in this Nation in the days not long since passed yea how many thousands left their Native Soils and went into a vast and howling Wilderness because they made it so in the utmost parts of the World to keep their Souls undefiled and chaste to their dear Lord Iesus as to this of his Worship and Institutions So that they scorn to pretend any less Authority than our Saviours own express Warrant for any thing wherein they differ and divide from the Church of England And this is a ruder and more insolent Affront to our Christian Liberty than the most confident Jew could ever have been guilty of for though he might endeavour to enslave us to his own Customs and Prejudices yet they are such as once bore the impression of Divine Authority whereas these Men would stamp the Authority of God upon their own Dreams and phantastick Conceits and vouch their humour and their ignorance with a Thus saith the Lord Iesus and so would bore the Ears and enslave the Understandings of all Christendom to their own folly and confidence And certainly there never were greater Tyrants and Usurpers in the Church of Christ than these exact and curious Judges of Divine Rights with what Confidence will they prescribe Truth to Mankind and adopt their own uncertain Problems and Scholastick Fooleries into the Fundamentals of Religion With what Assurance of Authority will they restrain all Mens Faith to the Standard of their own Apprehensions How briskly will they warrant this Opinion and explode that And how dogmatically will they assign the precise bounds of Orthodoxy All their Sentiments are the Decrees of the Medes and Persians all their Rules of Worship are Obligatory as Apostolical Canons all their Opinions are Oracles and had they sate in the Infallible Chairs of Rome or Geneva they could not have been more confident and peremptory in their Determinations But thus is the Church of England requited for her modesty and because she does not abuse the Consciences of Men to a rigid Observance of her Institutions under a false pretence of Divine Authority the gentle and moderate exercise of her own lawful Jurisdiction is by these Men branded with Tyranny and Usurpation whilst themselves in the mean while are not ashamed to obtrude their own Fancies and little Conceits upon their credulous Proselytes with the counterfeit Seal of Heaven and inslave their Consciences to their own imperious dictates by exhibiting forged Commissions from God himself and then the People dare not murmur against their unreasonable Impositions for that reverence they bear to that Authority which as they are told is imprinted on them But this has ever been the subtilty of these Men as it is of all Malefactors to rail most at their own Crimes and to avoid the suspicion of their own Guilt by deriving its imputation upon some of their innocent Neighbours But once more to return to our Authors Inference If then he means that the Church of England imposes her Ceremonial Institutions with an Opinion of their antecedent Necessity and so it is apparent he is willing enough to be understood 't is a bold Calumny if he means that they become consequentially necessary onely by virtue of their Institution 't is a woful impertinence and is no other infringment of our Liberty than what is inseparable from the Nature of Humane Laws And so all the Civil Laws of Commonwealths are apparently as chargeable with this sort of Usurpation as any of our Ecclesiastical Constitutions And therefore by the way I would willingly be satisfied that seeing the Judicial as well as the Ceremonial Law of Moses was annull'd and abrogated by the Establishment of the Christian Faith and seeing by consequence it was part of their Christian Liberty to be freed from its Obligatory Power what imaginable Reason can be assign'd why Authority should more invade the Rights of our Christian Liberty by establishing new Ecclesiastical Canons than by enacting new Civil Constitutions Or why the Common Law of England should not as much infringe that part of our Gospel-Priviledges whereby we are exempt from the Judicial Law as the Canons and Determinations of the Church do that other part whereby we are rescued from the Ceremonial To this Enquiry they will never be able to return any tolerable answer but by shifting the matter of their plea and then they forsake their hold of Christian Liberty and shelter themselves in a new Pretence Perhaps they may plead that God has reserved the Appointment of the way manner and circumstances of his own Worship to his own immediate Jurisdiction but has vested Civil Magistrates with a power to govern the secular Affairs of Common-wealths But then this is an open Flight from our present Engagement and now the thing pleaded in behalf of their Disobedience is not their Christian Liberty or their exemption from the Law of Moses but their Christian Duty or their subjection to the Law of Christ. Though when this Refuge comes to be attaqued it will be found more weak and defenceless than this that is already demolish'd and you may well expect wise work when they are urged to produce Testimonies of Scripture that restrain the Civil Magistrate from enacting Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions for the due government and performance of external Worship Here their Pleas are so horridly vain and ridiculous that in comparison of them the Celebrated Text of the Romanists super hanc Petram in behalf of the Infallibility of the Papal Chair is as Impertinent as it is Reason and Demonstration But after this I suppose we may have occasion to enquire elsewhere In the mean time 't is enough that we have beaten down this Paper Fort of Christian Liberty in which if men may be allowed to take sanctuary for their disobedience to the Churches Constitutions it will not only be a plausible Refuge for all Schismaticks and Male-contents but an eternal Annoyance to the Churches Peace and a perpetual Nursery of incurable Schisms and Divisions For all parts of outward Worship save only the two Sacraments being left undetermined in the Word of God and some particular determinations being absolutely necessary to prevent Disorder and Confusion and these being not capable of any force or obligatory Power and by consequence of any Usefulness to their proper End but by vertue of the Authority of the Civil Magistrate It follows unavoidably that if laying Restraints and Injunctions upon men in the outward Exercise of Publick Worship be a violation of their Christian Liberty that 't is absolutely impossible to make any effectual Provisions for the orderly and regular performance of the Worship of God or to provide any security against eternal Tumults and Seditions in the Church of God And whenever Phanatick spirits have a mind to be peevish and humoursom they have here a sacred and
and Villanies And now our Author for want of new Invention falls to chewing the Cud upon an old Slander for from my account of Christian Liberty I concluded that all Internal Acts of the Mind of Man are exempt from the Empire of Humane Laws that the substance of Religious Worship is transacted by them and that its exteriour Significations are not absolutely necessary to its performance and therefore whatever restraints the Civil Magistrate might lay upon their outward Actions in reference to Divine Worship yet notwithstanding that they might perform all that is necessary to the discharge and the acceptance of the Duty How says our Author This is an open door to Atheism for he is still knocking at that upon every slight occasion for who would not think this to be his Intention Let Men keep their Minds and inward Thoughts and Apprehensions right for God and then they may practise outwardly in Religion what they please one thing one day another another be Papists and Protestants Arians and Homousians yea Mahometans and Christians I see this Man is resolved never to lose any advantage for want of confidence and if ill-natur'd Inferences can do his business who can withstand the Power of his Logick Who would not think this to be my intention say you I say Who would unless one that thinks himself able to face me out of my plain meaning and bear me down out of countenance and common sense Does the difference between Papists and Protestants Arians and Homousians Mahometans and Christians consist in Rites and Ceremonies of external Worship Who then beside your confidence from the indifferency of the outward forms and fashions of Worship would conclude the indifferency of all Religions Their real differences arise from something else and lie not in Rites and Ceremonies but in Principles of Faith and Rules of Life Bate these and we will never quarrel Turks or Papists for any of their outward signs and expressions of Divine Worship according to the Laws and Customs of their own Country provided they are not faulty upon one or both of the forementioned accounts that they tend to debauch Men either in their practices or their conceptions of the Deity and therefore to apply what was affirm'd onely of Ceremonies of Worship to Articles of Belief is such a way of dealing with Arguments as only becomes our Authors Logick and Ingenuity But upon this occasion let me mind him that publick and visible Worship is no such necessary and indispensable Duty but that it may in some circumstances be lawfully omitted for suppose this Man were in the Dominions of the Grand Signior he would not I presume think himself absolutely obliged in Conscience to set up open Meetings and Conventicles without leave of the Government but would for the security of his Life be content to enjoy his Religion to himself without climbing up to the top of a Mosque to proclaim their Prophet a lewd Jugler unless he were actually required to renounce the Christian Faith and turn Apostate to the Mahumetan Imposture And therefore I would willingly know why the same Liberty will not satisfie them here as to the Obligations of Conscience that they would be content with there there is no other reason assignable than that they will do more for Fear than for Obedience and this is undeniable evidence that 't is something else and not Conscience as is pretended that lies at the bottom of all their present Schisms and Disturbances § 6. But now having given this brief account of the use of External Worship from the Nature and Properties of the thing it self I proceeded for a farther Confirmation of my former Assertions to an Historical Report to shew that God had in all Ages of the World left its management to the discretion of Men unless when to determine some particular forms hapned to be useful to some other purposes Where in the first place I instanced in the Religion of the old World and attempted to prove that Sacrifices which were the most ancient if not the onely Expressions of Divine Worship were purely of Humane Institution Now the first murmur our Author raises against this is That I should for the most part set off my Assertions at so high a rate and yet found them not onely upon uncertain Principles but upon such Paradoxes as are generally decried by Learned Men Such is this of the Original of Sacrifices here insisted on Certainly it would be present death for this Man to speak to the purpose he avoids and dreads all Pertinency as he would poison or Rats-bane For where do I lay any such mighty stress upon this Assertion In what great strains do I urge the necessity of its admittance To what purpose then does he upon this occasion upbraid me with the briskness and vehemence of any Expressions that were spoken upon other subjects and to other purposes I have indeed loaded some other Principles with their proper mischiefs and inconveniences I have shewn that the Pleas of the Nonconformists from the natural right of Mankind from the Obligations of scandal and from the pretences of a tender and unsatisfied Conscience for exemption from the Commands of lawful Authority tend to a direct and inevitable dissolution of all Governments and all Societies There the weightiness of the matter and the Argument required some suitable eagerness of expression but why should I be minded of those warm passages in this place The matter of this Enquiry is neither of that evidence nor that importance as to need or deserve any grandeur and vehemence of stile 'T is indeed pertinent but not at all necessary to the drift of my Discourse for without its assistance I am able to prove the Power of Christian Magistrates over the outward Concerns of Religious Worship in Christian Commonwealths Neither do I at all bottom my Discourse upon its admission but onely use it as an accessional reflection to my main Argument and cast it in as a particular instance to give check to the Adversaries confidence thereby to shew 't is not absolutely necessary as is pretended to the acceptableness of Religious Worship that it should be warranted by Divine Institution when 't is so contrary to experience for any thing that appears upon Record as to the Religion of the old World But seeing 't is a pretty subject let us a little farther examine whether the Assertion be not evident enough to bear all the weight I have laid upon it Many Learned Men have indeed stretch't their Parts to make out wise accounts of the Nature and Original of Sacrifices and because they were in the first Ages of the World the most remarkable perhaps the onely visible signs and expressions of Religious Worship nothing will satisfie their curiosity unless they may derive them either from the Obligation of the Law of Nature or some express Institution of God himself But when we come to weigh the Grounds and Principles of their Discourse we find
a passable proof and so satisfactory that our Author has nothing to except against it but by pretending its inconsistency with some other parts of my Discourse but for the present that is no Objection against the positive truth and direct reason of the Argument it self and in short 't is this All Rituals and Ceremonies and Postures and Manners of performing the outward Expressions of Devotion are not from 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 their Determination 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 professeth to injoin them only as meer circumstances of Religious VVorship 't is apparent that it cannot by imposing them make any Additions to the VVorship of God but only provides that what God has required be performed in a decent and orderly manner And this is the real difference between the Christian and Mosaick Ceremonies in that theirs were made lasting and necessary parts of their Religion by being establish't with the same impress of Divine Authority as the Duties of the Moral Law whereas ours are not any integral parts of Divine VVorship but purely accidental and alterable circumstances of Religious Services and so are not of the same standing Necessity and Obligation as were the Mosaick Rites but as they were first established by our Superiours according to the common Rules of decency and discretion so may they be reversed by the same Authority In a word they are of the same Nature and Obligation with all other matters of humane Laws that are only disposed of by the publick Wisdom as it shall by the common notices of things judge them most convenient to publick Ends. § 4. And now upon this Bottom we might fairly wind up this Controversie for I am secure this ever has been and ever will be its real Issue But our Author cries no no. For if this Principle should fail us there are yet other general Maxims which Non-conformists adhere unto and suppose not justly questionable which they can firmly stand and build upon in the management of their Plea as to all differences between me and them i. e. He is a resolved and incorrigible Schismatick and the plain design of these words is only to encourage the People to stand firm to their Principles what though we may be stormed out of our old Elsibeth-pretensions let us not immediately resign up our Colours and march out of our Cause we have when all is lost unknown retreats and fastnesses as all Banditi and Moss-Troopers have to secure our selves from perfect discovery and destruction This man is a Demetrius a Ring-leader in sedition and therefore it more peculiarly concerns him to bestir himself and keep the Mutineers together and raise and animate their fainting spirits against discouragements and despondencies The People may murmur among themselves Is this poor Pretence the only ground of all our Schisms and Disturbances Have our Leaders no greater grievance against the publick Laws than this lank and pitiful Story which themselves it seems dare not own without mincing and disguising it with their own shuffling and to us unintelligible Reservations Is this all the Popery and Idolatry of the Church of England against which they are still inveighing with so much Zeal and Bitterness at the Meetings Must all this noise and stir be made and the King and Parliament thus disturbed for this Neighbours let us be advised and not create all this needless trouble to our selves and others only to countenance their Pride and Peevishness The plain troth is their Zeal was so flush'd with success in the late Tumults as transported them to too much Outrage and Cruelty against the Church and now because forsooth they are ashamed to acknowledge their fault and folly for what disgrace so grievous to proud and self-opinionated men as to confess an Error we fools as we are must be inveigled and drawn in to bear out their Extravagances Come come this is the true Mystery of Separation For you may see they themselves whatever they pretend are not so fond as seriously to believe the Publick Worship Popish and Idolatrous Do we not know that the Chiefs of the Presbyterians came constantly to Church and to Common Prayer till of late and those that are more modest and peaceable do so still which 't is apparent they could never have done had they really deem'd it Idolatry How then shall we justifie our selves in running thus giddily into these wild and unwarrantable Schisms Does not common sense tell us though perhaps we understand nor their School subtilties that 't is a base and unworthy thing thus insolently to affront the Kings Laws when we may avoid it without breaking Gods And therefore seeing whatever Reasons they may have for their own Non-conformity we are satisfied by their own example they have none big enough to warrant our Separation Let us then resolve with one Consent to be peaceable and ingenuous and return every man to his own home and his own Parish-Church But bear back this great Chieftain appears for he is still upon all Occasions the most bold and forward Oratour to hearten his back-sliding Brethren against Doubts and Despondencies witness Ianuary 31. in the year 48. when those wretched Miscreants wanted some spiritual Comfort and Cordial against the horrour of their Yesterdays villany And thus he appears in this present streight and thus you may suppose him after Preface of solemn wink to bespeak the mutinous Churches My Friends do you consider what you attempt Do you know what dreadful and horrible things are still behind Alas False Worship Superstition Tyranny and Cruelty lye at the Bottom and when these have possessed the Governours of a Nation and wrapt in the consent of the greatest Part of the People who have been acquainted with the mind of God that People and Nation assure your selves without unpresidented Mercy is obnoxious to remediless Ruine If you think Babylon is confined to Rome and its open Idolatry you know nothing of Babylon or the new Ierusalem no no their darling Errors are stones of the old Babel closing and coupling with that tremendous Fabrick which the man of sin has erected to dethrone Jesus Christ. You may venture to taste if you please but remember who forewarned you there is death in the Episcopal Pot. But as for your own Parts let all the World know and let the House of England know this day that you lie unthankfully under as full a dispensation of mercy and grace as ever Nation in the World enjoyed well you will one day know what it is to undervalue the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ i. e. the seditious Preachings of I.O. Good Lord What would helpless Macedonians give for one of your Enjoyments O that Wales O that Ireland O