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A47758
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Remarks on some late sermons, and in particular on Dr. Sherlock's sermon at the Temple, Decemb. 30, 1694 in a letter to a friend.
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Leslie, Charles, 1650-1722.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing L1148; ESTC R2124
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59,686
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64
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little more Dirty and seems as if it was bred in a Pigsty 4. I am yet further obliged to you for confirming according to your Model and Talent all other Matters and Things in the Remarks you have thought good to take Notice of so that if you had pleased you might have called your Pamphlet a Defence of the Remarks For I can assure you it is a much better Defence of the Remarks than of the Sermons This I suppose you did not think on and it may be you do not yet know it but in this I shall relieve you by an enumeration of Particulars and then take my leave of you I. You tell me p. 1. That I charge such of the Clergy as think themselves oblig'd to speak honorably of the present Government with inconsistency with their former Principles and Practices and then add If it could be but as well proved as it is boldly asserted Well Sir whether I have proved it or no I shall leave to the Reader but I am very certain you have proved it sufficiently For you immediately tell me I should have consider'd what hath been writ in defence of the Clergy from that Charge by Mr. Johnson and the Author of Bibliotheca Politica This Sir let me tell you is a very lucky Choice and you could not have pickt out two such Authors for my Purpose For the Principles that both of Them proceed upon are directly contrary to those which the Gentlemen whom the Remarks charges with inconsistency have asserted preached and maintained over and over Mr. Johnson and the Letter to the Lord Russel consist like Fire and Water and Dr. Burnet's Dialogues and the Bibliotheca are as consistent as Contradictions or as that Doctor is consistent with himself so that you defend them from inconsistency by plainly proving it For if these Gentlemen justify their present Practices by the Principles of those two Authors then they do it by deserting and abandoning their own Principles and that Sir with your good leave is Inconsistency with a Witness and if you please down-right Apostacy But you tell us they defend them from inconsistency by proving That Passive Obedience as cry'd up in the late Times was never the Doctrin of the Church of England But by your Favour that is more than they or you or all your Party are able to prove but that is not the Question now and therefore suppose it what is that to the Purpose These very Gentlemen believed and taught That Passive Obedience was the Doctrin of that Church and as such pressed it upon the Consciences of Men under pain of Damnation And does not your own Mr. Johnson tell one of them Dr. Tillotson That he cram'd Passive Obedience down the Throat of a dying Lord And could you find no Body but Mr. Johnson to defend him from Inconsistency And I 'll warrant you Dr. Sherlock is defended from Inconsistency too by his old Friend Mr. Johnson Sir you have the strangest way of defending Things that ever was heard of But it seems even this Defence such as it is admits of Exceptions for you add For such of them as might be hurried into that Opinion by the Current of the Times meaning St. Asaph Dr. Tillotson Dr. Burnet Dr. Patrick Dr. Sherlock and all the Ecclesiastical Champions of the Usurpation for these are the Men who held this Opinion are charged with Inconsistency and whom you undertake to defend from it These it seems are the light and inconsiderate Men who took up an Opinion of this Weight with haste and precipitation and without due Regard had to the Nature of it So that when Dr. Tillotson wrot the Letter to the Lord Russel when Dr. Burnet wrot his Dialogues Dr. Patrick his Friendly Debate and Paraphrases Dr. Sherlock his Case of Resistance Dr. Stillingfleet his Jesuits Loyalty 't was all Weakness and Incogitancy they swam with the Stream without either Caution or Consideration Now Sir if this is all that can be honestly said for them 't is sure no extraordinary Character and makes their Authority of no Value in the World For if Men can be hurried into such Opinions by the Current of the Times who knows but they may be so still And the wisest Man living will never be able to distinguish whether their new Opinions and Practices are the result of their Judgments or the effects of the Times and give me leave to tell you That when Men change their Doctrins with Seasons and Opportunities 't is a shrewd Suspition that the Times make the Doctrines and if you will derive their Pedigree they may say to the Revolution Thou art our Father However such it seems they are and what is to be said to defend them Why as to that you tell us It may be reply'd that no Man is forbid to examin his Principles To examin his Principles No doubt of it But pray Sir what do you mean by Examining One would think that when Men preach Sermons write Books treat of the Question ex Professo that they either had or at least ought to have examined them Upon my Word you make rare Men of them and fit to be trusted with our Consciences And this is a glorious Defence indeed that from Year to Year from Sermon to Sermon from Book to Book they inculcate these Principles and fasten them upon the Consciences of Men as eternal and immutable Doctrines and yet never examined them themselves Sir this is a lamentable Case and you are very hard put to it when you have no other way to defend them but what at one Dash blasts all their Authority and discredits every Thing they have said since the Revolution as well as before For I crave leave to tell you That meer Swearing will never mend a Man's Character And therefore you call upon them to much purpose to lay hold on all Occasions to commend the present Government when at the same time you have taken extraordinary Care that their Words shall go for just nothing For if the World believe you I am certain they neither will nor can believe them But for all that they must be defended And you yet add That my whole Charge amounts to no more than this that some of the Clergy were formerly Blind but now they See Well! if my Charge amounts to no more yours you see amounts to a great deal more and you must answer for it as well as you can However methinks this is a pretty way to defend them from Inconsistency for what you call Blindness and Seeing I call Owning and Renouncing and so does all the World besides But you may call it what you please your Metaphors mean the same Thing and the plain English is They have forsaken their former Principles and that is the Inconsistency I charge them with which you frankly own and abundantly prove so that as far as I can see we are perfectly agreed and there need no more Words about it II. The next Thing is the Distinction
may be recommended from the Pulpit as a great Examplar of all Vertue Perfection and Excellence and preached up into Heaven by a whole Sett of Divines without the least guard on this Head or any manner of direction concerning it I doubt rebellious Children will infer for themselves and think they may merit abundance of Praise too and go to Heaven at last although they allow themselves in a visible and standing Breach of a plain and necessary Duty For if unnatural Disobedience be no Impeachment to one Man's Vertue neither is it to another's and God hath not given the Fifth Commandment to common People only and left Princes to their own Liberty in the matter And in good truth these Gentlemen have been such faithful Stewards as to do their best to pray and preach all natural Duty out of the World And therefore The second is To Caution all Men from hence to be very careful how they join with encourage support or commend directly or by consequence any Disobedience to Parents lest the Fate of rebellious Children be derived to them and they also shorten their own Days and bring themselves to an untimely End For 't is a rul'd Case whosoever is Accessary to the Guilt is Accessary to the Punishment too One Man 's personal Vices become another Man 's by his Consent and Approbation and much more by his Applauding and Encouraging them How large and wide therefore this Crime of Filial Disobedience reaches I shall not need to determine so far as this Consent extends to particular Persons the Guilt is Personal and so far as it is National the Guilt also is National and the Threatning and Judgment is also as large and as extensive as the Guilt And there is a Shortning the Days of a Nation as well as of particular Persons by cutting them off from being no more a People or by divesting them of their Ancient Government Constitution Privileges Laws and Franchises which is in truth making them another Nation than they were before and of another Polity I pray God divert his Judgments both from particular Persons and from the whole Nation and give all Men Wisdom to take early Warning by particular Examples that by a timely Repentance they may prevent the Execution of those Threatnings which apparently hang over our Heads and are the declar'd Consequences and Effects of our present Actions For there is nothing more plain than that this Nation hath notoriously violated the Fifth Commandment upon all Accounts upon which it can be violated both in an unjust Rebellion against the Civil Parent and withal at the same time abetting and supporting an unparallel'd Disobedience against the Natural Parent But to return to Providence There are some Circumstances yet to be observ'd particularly as to Time and especially if we shall follow these Gentlemen in their Method of reading and interpreting of Providence and how much such Observations will come home to them you may see by this one Instance of Dr. Tillotson * Thanksgiving Sermon 1688. p. 30. Our wonderful Deliverance says he from the formidable Spanish Invasion designed against us happen'd in the Year 1588. And now just a hundred Years after the very same Year and at the same Season of the Year this last great Deliverance came to us That horrid Gun-powder Conspiracy without President and without Parallel was designed to have been executed upon the Fifth Day of November the same Day upon which his Highness the Prince of Orange Landed the Forces here in England which he brought hither for our rescue And the very same you may find in Dr. Burnet and others mentioning it with mighty Triumph as a Divine Seal and Testimony to their Cause Now Sir if you please turn your Eyes to the Case before us and you will find That the Princess sickned was invaded by a mortal Distemper and struggled with the Grief and Pangs of it in the same Month Days and Moments in the which her Father but Six Years before laboured under the Agonies of an unnatural Invasion and Rebellion That she died the same Month almost the same Day of the Month but the very same Hour of the Day on which her Father was forced into Exile for he withdrew himself from Rochester about One in the Morning And to this you may add That the exposing her Corps to publick View and lying in State happens to be in the same Month of February in which she and her Husband were proclaimed in publick King and Queen And to compleat the Parallel One great Reason if not the only Reason of the delay to this Month was for that the Purple the Royal Colours to adorn the Solemnity was expected from Holland And I doubt not but a critical and curious Observer will find That every remarkable Moment in her Sickness Death Funeral Pomp and Funeral it self will answer to so many several Steps made in the Revolution How far such Things as these are Argumentative either from the Nature of Things the Observations of Men or the ordinary Methods of Divine Providences I shall not now enquire Only I am certain This is Argumentum ad Hominem and these Gentlemen who have used it themselves and with such great Assurance too can never Except against it For if Years and Seasons of the Year and such like are Things so observable as from thence to point out a Determination of the Divine Will or to signify God's Approbation or Dislike here we have them all even to Months and Hours with an Accumulation of Circumstances and their own Arguments turn upon them with this great Advantage That for Days in which Men are to perform any remarkable Actions they are frequently in their own Choice and Fatalists who are Superstitious Observers of Times and Seasons will be sure to pitch upon such Days as they think or have observ'd to be fortunate to them But Death is out of our Choice and Power 't is the peculiar Stroke of God himself Cromwel gain'd two famous and fortunate Victories on the 3d of Sept. but he died on that Day too and all his Hopes were blasted and an End put to his Usurpation which not only eternally confuâ—eâ— all the bold and blasphemous Arguments drawn for him from Providence and Success but turn'd the Edge of them directly upon themselves III. The last Thing I shall observe to you is The Excursion the Doctor makes in Memory of an old Friend of his p. 16. seq This old Friend you must know is Dr. Tillotson between whom and the Doctor it seems were very great Endearments although after the Revolution there might be for some time a Misunderstanding which the Doctor out of his Generosity can forget and if other People would forget it too it would never be the worse for him But even at the same time the distance was not so wide as some People thought for there was another Friend of his and who was Friend to them both who all along kept up the Amity