with slaughter-weapons in their hands were Commanded to begin at the Sanctuary God can provide slaughter-men and slaughter-weapons for us if we will not be merciful to Conscience He shall have judgment without mercy that hath shewed no mercy Jam. 2.13 1 Per. 4 17. Ps 79.2 3 The time is come that judgment must begin at the House of God How terrible hath this been in former times The dead Bodies of thy Servants have they given to be meat to the Fouls of the Heaven the Flesh of thy Saints unto the Beasts of the Earth Their Blood have they shed like Water round about Jerusalem If we would avoid all the Plagues that attend Oppressors and Persecutors of Conscience we must cast away all Impositions and give the best incouragement to them who labour most to maintain the power of Godliness in themselves and others Those who agree with us in all the Substantials of Religion and add no dangerous or destructive Tenet to these Bolde of Persecutior Pag. 20. who are holy sober chaste temperate righteous compassionate and merciful and who no way endeavour to disturb the publick Peace but are vigorous Protestants and resolute opposers of the common enemies of our Religion and Civil Rights they ought especially considering our present circumstances to be so far from being Persecuted and Oppressed as to have all the incouragement and countenance that pious Christians and Loyal Subjects can claim and deserve If you thus support Piety and relieve tender Consciences you shall be blessed and honoured and your flocks shall flourish under your conduct Clergy and People shall be an ornament and strength one to another If you undo the heavy burdens Isa 58.6 and let the oppressed grieved Consciences go free and break every yoke of needless Impositions Then shall your light break forth as the morning 8 11.12 and the glory of the Lord shall be your rere-ward He shall guide you continually and satisfie your Souls And you shall be called the repairers of the breach and restorers of paths to dwell in When you chiefly mind the Glory of God and the good of souls all your enemies shall fall into contempt and God shall bring forth your Righteousness as the light Psa 37.6 notwithstanding all the obloquy cast upon you by evil men Your Enemies shall be like chaff driven away They are but like the small Particles of dust which continually beat upon us and are not felt nor discerned but in the Sun beams Millions of these are continually agitated about us by the Air in motion The most enraged Enemies of our Church are but breathing dust moved by the breath of Life which is but a vapour Jan. 4.14 The whole rabble of Antichristian furies now in combination against us in England Scotland and Ireland are but Gods Prisoners in Chains if he suffer them to rattle their fetters about the ears of the faithful yet they shall never be able wholly to destroy them The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church Ma. 16.18 The head of the Church is the Judge of the World he will not suffer his Jail-birds to triumph over his Body I have done with the fourth consideration the manifold mischiefs of these Impositions I have been long wading through them but the grief of innumerable tender consciences under the weight of them hath been longer and very deplorable Length here cannot be avoided these little things have caused so many mischiefs that it is very difficult to speak little of them I shall now proceed to the last consideration and conclude V. The danger that threatens us in the continuance of Ceremonies in the Worship of God It is hoped that they who do not seriously consider the distress of others may be awakened with the black prospect of their own danger We are threatned with a double danger present and future I. Our present danger This may be set forth in three Particulars I. The continuance of these things will bring upon us the contempt and hatred of the People Multitudes in City and Countrey have a Prejudice against us for the late miscarriages of some and the unseasonable stiffness of others for the things that divide and weaken us when it concerns us all to be united as one man against the common Enemy If this temper should prevail we shall be abhorred by all men for exposing the publick happiness to the danger of Ruin only for things of no value and which we acknowledge to be in their own nature Indifferent Bolde Plea for Moderation Pag. 5. It is high high time to leave off insisting on little Punctilio's of Honour we ought duly to weigh our circumstances and the nature of the things we contend about and if our dangers be unmeasurably great and the things we differ about such as will not bear so great a weight as the loss of our Religion and all our Rights we must yield something on either side and that side must be willing to part with most that can do it with greatest ease and most innocence The Dissenters doubt of the Lawfulness of some of our terms of Communion and therefore cannot yield to us but we may with ease and innocence condescend to them in quiting Impositions not appointed by God Small differences must give place to the greater Points Bishop Burnets Exhortation to Peace and Vnion Pag. 11. in which we are at one for all that act otherwise shew clearly that tho they do not think it decent to speak out what they think yet in their hearts they undervalue the Common Interest of the Protestant Religion in which we agree but set a real value upon indifferent matters and are acted by the heats and animosities of a Party to which all other things give place Our Brethren have according to the Act of Indulgence subscribed our Doctrine and thereby are incorporated into the Church of England The People see by this that they agree with us in the Substantials of our Religion and they may account us guilty of Peev ishness and Malice if we continue those little things as terms of Communion which we know they cannot comply with And to do this after our acknowledgements in distress and a promise of coming to a due temper may make them abhor us as Enemies to our Countrey Tho some of our make-bats who do wholly imploy their Talents to widen our differences Bolde Plea for Moderation pag. 6. do pretend to the Church of England I am verily perswaded they are either Real Papists or very mischievous Instruments in Popish hands to effect and bring about the common Ruin of Protestants It cannot be with a good design that at this time of day they are Zealous for things that they know will continue a great division amongst us It is not to be doubted but that the crossness and secret Practices of some Clergy-men and Priest-ridden Gentlemen have obstructed affairs in Parliament hindred the relief of Derry to the loss
of many Thousand Gallant men Ireland had been in a fair way of recovery and the Rebellion in Scotland had not come to such a head but for such tools Some of our Guides are more unkind to England than Forreigners The Dutch to purchase our liberty besides the charge of 600000 l. ventured a great fleet and a considerable Army when they might have wanted it themselves but some among us will not part with a few trifles to save Church and State Will not such folly and madness bring upon us the contempt and hatred of all men and make the wise and the good ashamed to own us The Clergy counting them to be 20000 which is much too large a reckoning there not being 10000 Parishes in England are but the 250th part of the Nation supposing the People to be but 5 Millions and shall 249 souls be exposed to all kind of dangers and miseries for the mad humour of one man All the pious sober and moderate Clergy-men are for a Union the rest are some of them Dignified Drones these fear contempt if more diligent labourers are admitted into the Church some are learned but are inflamed with a Pharisaical Zeal for the form of Godliness denying the Power thereof some are debauched and fear the severe correction that is due unto them Some are departed from our Doctrine and fear here the shoe pincheth that their errors will be exposed by the accession of such an Orthodox Interest as the Body of the Presbyterians who are firm to the Doctrine of the Church of England Some are so sottish that they act their part very ill and would be undone if their tools were taken away all our sticklers are Tantivees for their own humours and care not what becomes of our Religion Laws and Liberties Many of these are the Disciples of Old Roger helped to cry him up and maintain him as a great Pillar of the Church with him they Rejoyced in the Invasions that were made upon our Rights and the Barbarous executions of Protestant Noblemen and Gentlemen in the late times of Pâ—â—ery and Arbitrary Popery If the Sword should be drawn again in England how severely will this unmercifulness of Clergy-men be revenged upon them as the cause of all our miseries by their perverseness for toys Such troublers of our Israel may expect nothing less than a total extirpation and that the people will make sure work with a sort of men that are not content to have once imbroiled the three Kingdoms in a bloody War for indifferent things but do now take the same methods for the same vanities to make us pass through all those calamities again II. Our danger of losing all our lately recovered Rights if by our divisions we should again let in the common enemy Popery is a Plot and Conspiracy against all the Interests of mankind strikes at the foundations of humane Society and will not suffer men to use their reason and senses deposeth assassinates Kings absolves Subjects from their Allegiance Dispenseth with the most horrid wickednesses It is a Religion that loves to lap in humane blood and hath filled the World with Slaughters Dr. Moor Divine Dialognes pag. 161. Pope Julius in seven years was the occasion of the Slaughter of 200000 Christians The Massacre in France in three months cut off a 100000. P. Perionius avers that in the Persecution of the Albingenses and Waldenses 1000000 lost their lives From the beginning of the Jesuits till 1580 that is thirty or forty years 900000 perished saith Balduinus The Duke of Alva by the hangman put to death 36000. Vergerius affirms that the Inquisition in 30 years destroyed 150000. To all this I may add the Irish Rebellion in which were destroyed 300000 as the Lord Orery reports in a Paper printed in the Reign of Charles II. Tho some new-fashioned Divines have represented Popery in favourable Colours and endeavoured to clear the Pope from the old charge of being Antichrist for the baffling of such flattering Doctors comes the late and I hope the last persecution from Antichrist Dragon Persecution in France Orange and Savoy This hath out-done all Persecutions both Pagan and Papal that ever were in the World No Persecution no nor all the persecutions together contained in them all the barbarities of this Never any raged to such a high degree of subtilty malice and cruelty in this have suffered above 150000 who would heartily have chosen to change a miserable life for death but life was câ—â—â—inued to load it with longer miseries and death was denied as a favour too great for them Innumerable were the violences that were committed on the Souls Bodies and Estates of Protestants They grieved the modest Souls of vertuous Women and Maids by hanging them up naked by their feet or by their arm-pits thus exposing them to publick view In Parents they tormented their bowels of natural affection They bound mothers that gave suck unto posts and let their infants lye in their sight several days languishing Crying Moaning Gasping for Life and even dying for Hunger and Thirst Swearing to them they should not give Suck till they abjured The new art of waging War against the reason of Christians is a Devilism never practised before they poured Wine down their throats till the fumes overcame their reason to destroy their reason for want of sleep they Tickled Lashed Flung them about threw buckets of water on their faces made a continual noise upon kettles over their heads and tormented them a 1000 ways By this many were distracted and others became mopish and stupid All the tragical methods of that persecution had before this been acted again in England if God had not in mercy sent our Gracious Soveraign to save us from the Lyons mouth Let us remember and consider what hath been done upon others and let their sufferings be a warning to us that we give no advantage to our enemies by continuing any of the instruments that divided and weakened us brought upon us our late confusions and still threaten us with danger A relapse would be a greater evil than any we have yet had a prospect of The cruelty of Popery against Hereticks would be raised to a higher degree than ever by an infatiable thirst of revenge upon us for our insolency in throwing off our Fetters and Chains All that hath been acted under Paganism and Popery will be unspeakably short of what we must feel if we return again to the house of Bondage Our task will be doubled and trebled the Fiery Furnace shall be heated seven times hotter than ever and seventy times too if they can do it If after all that we have seen and feared and others have sadly felt any amongst us resolve still to stickle for their Toys it may be said of them as of the Caldeans Jer. 50.38 They are mad upon their Idols III. Our danger in respect of Gods Judgments which we may bring upon our heads Tho Popery should never be able to
THE VANITY Mischief and Danger Of Continuing CEREMONIES IN THE Worship of God Humbly Proposed to the Present Convocation By P. M. A Minister of the Church of England Philip. 4.5 Let your Moderation be known unto all men The Lord is at hand LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Rich. Baldwin in the Great Old Baily near the Black Bull. 1690. THE Publisher to the Reader THese Papers were sent hither by a Reverend Divine of the Church of England that resides in the Country The Reader will easily perceive by the perusal of 'em that all our Clergy there are not of the same mind with those whom Vox Cleri represents And had the several Dioceses sent us up Proctors for the Clergy of the same Excellent Principles and Healing Temper with this Author to have seconded our Reverend Bishops in those good dispositions to Accommodation which they seem to have brought with 'em we might have had some better hopes of seeing an happy End put to those sad Divisions which have so long sullied the Honour and weakned the Interest of the Protestant Religion amongst us But yet we would not willingly despair of the Lower House of Convocation We know not but the opportunity and leisure which this short Interval gives 'em for converse and calmer Thoughts may do something to allay their Heats and mellow their Judgments and sweeten their Humour against the next Meeting And the little peevishness wherewith I doubt not some of the Clergy that continue disaffected to the present Government have leaven'd 'em may soon wear off when they come to understand things better But if notwithstanding the fair Advantages put into our hands to lay the Foundation of a Lasting Union by reforming Abuses and removing the Obstacles of it if notwithstanding all the weighty Arguments that should at this time urge us to it we are deaf to all seasonable Counsels of Peace what can we expect but that Almighty God will bring us into new Dangers to cement our Affections and send our Enemies to be our Peace-makers The Vanity Mischief and Danger of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God To the Reverend Clergy of the Church of England My Reverend Fathers and Brethren IT is the wonder and grief of all good English Protestants that such an unaccountable frenzy should possess and hurry some hot Clergy men amongst us with a blind zeal against the good Proposals of Peace prepared by the Kings Commissioners in the Jerusalem Chamber They make a tragical outcry as if the Church were to be undone when there is no danger of parting with any thing but what may well be spared nothing is intended but the removal of the brambles that have rent and torn her Some do think that amongst the invisible inhabitants of the world there are ludicrous Spirits of an inferiour rank and that these play the little tricks in disturbed houses Some such ludicrous Spirits act these men who have a long time haunted and vexed the Church the house of God with the Pother they have made for Annis and Cummin and have made little reckoning of weightier matters For trifles they labour all they can to heighten amongst people an unseasonable and dangerous sourness and peevishness When a Popish Prince ascended the Throne they endeavoured to make us believe that we were happy that James the Just never broke his word and now they set all their creatures on work to inflame people with animosities and jealousies of the Churches danger when our gracious Josiah labours to inlarge the interest and to increase the beauty and glory of our Church And this he doth in such a method as may expiate former miscarriages and deliver us from the reproach of the late wasting persecutions First He gives a Commission to some of our Reverend Fathers and Divines to prepare things for peace then he calls a Convocation to consider those things and recommend them to the Parliament He puts it in our own power in a great measure to heal the great breaches and repair the lamentable ruins and desolations that have been made by some amongst us To be a little more particular because this matter lays the greatest difficulties in our way of Peace and renders our present case most perplexed Let all our Reverend Pious and Learned Churchmen weigh well the manifold considerations that oblige them by all means to endeavour that the evil temper of some amongst us may not prevail I. The Honour of the Clergy is concerned II. It is a vain thing to attempt the continuance of Ceremonies III. It is unreasonable IV. The manifold mischiefs of impositions V. Our danger present and future I. The honour of the Clergy is concerned Farewel to the reputation and honour of the Clergy of the Church of England if Ceremonies are now continued in the Worship of God In the time of our affliction we did talk of Prayers and Tears as the only weapons of Christians this will be lookt upon as hypocritical canting if we labour to continue the instruments of persecution We have promised to come to a temper towards Dissenters how infamous shall we be if we violate a promise so publickly given when under the rod We have lost many opportunities of Peace we have now a Glorious opportunity and many engagements upon us to improve it Shall an evil Spirit still prevail among us to the defeating all the designs of Providence Bishop Burnets Exhortation to Peace and Vnion pag. 12. and the crossing of all attempts for Peace and Union So that neither the errour that all men seemed to confess nor the promises which were then generally made neither our late distress nor our present dangers can bring us to a sound mind or to a calm temper that in this our day we may know the things that belong to our Peace There have been condescensions towards Papists as in the Litany and the 28th Article and shall we be stiff only towards those of our own Communion who have subscribed the Doctrine of our Church It will be thought that we bear a secret dislike to pious Protestants if we can yield to the enemies of our Religion and not to them We shall load our selves with the crime of ingratitude towards Christ our Soveraign and Dissenters We thank God for our Redemption by Jesus Christ believing that he hath bought us with his blood and shall we continue stumbling blocks to keep many pious Pastors from feeding his Lambs for whom he laid down his life Our gracious Soveraign hath been indefatigable in his labours for our deliverance from Popery and Arbitrary power he hath saved our Church and State our Religion Laws Liberties Estates and our lives and how great will be our ingratitude and folly if we continue obstinate for the retaining those things that let in upon us the dangers from which we are so lately delivered and do now hinder his Majesties peaceable Government and obstruct his acting according to his glorious ambition that designs chiefly the
relief of the oppressed and the advancement of the Protestant Interest at home and abroad Let it not give offence if I say that we shall be ingrateful towards Dissenters They were steady for the preservation of the Church of England in the day of our distress against the taking away of the Test and the Penal Laws by which they had smarted so much There were more of our own Communion than of theirs that revolted from us and turned against the Laws And now they have an Indulgence by Law they are contented with the liberty of serving God according to their conscience and trouble not the Government with Petitions for more neither have they given any indication of envying us the honours and Profits we enjoy How shall we give an account to God and Man for all the evils that may be occasioned by our obstinacy Mankind may justly abhor us if we perversly shake the foundations of the Peace and Happiness of our Countrey for things of no value The word Schism hath been a long time by some of us flung about at random but now people will know on whom to charge it The meetings of the Dissenters are as legal as ours None are by the Law of God or man obliged to hold Communion with us upon the present terms If we by continuing them drive people from us the Schism will lodge at our doors and we shall be the Schismaticks They that for Rites labour to keep up our animosities justify the late violences Bishop Burnets Exhortation to Peace and Vnion Pag. 27. and make themselves guilty of all the Persecutions of former times Men may be still Persecutors tho' they are not able to persecute any longer according to our Saviours charging the guilt of intended sins on those who never acted them And God may charge upon them all the blood that hath been shed from the foundation of the World from the blood of Abel unto the blood of those glorious champions for our Religion and Laws Essex Russel Sidney Cornish c. Verily I say unto you it shall be required of this Generation Luk. 11.51 They who approved of and rejoiced in the murder of these men of honour may have their hands full of blood in the sight of God II. It is a vain thing to attempt the continuance of Ceremonies Wise men when they are earnest in the prosecution of any affair aim at some end that may recompence their diligence Now it is exceeding difficult to find out what end people propose to themselves in being zealous for the keeping up of these things When a comprehension was endeavoured by that incomparable Triumvirate of our Church the Lord Keeper Bridgman the Lord Chief Justice Hales and Bishop Wilkins it was objected the concessions would tempt those of our own Communion to forsake us and go over to the Church of Rome Whatever strength there was in that Objection then it signifies little now Popery having appear'd since in its true colours We need not fear the losing of any except them who corrupted the Victuals and put Garbage into the Vessels of Beer for the Navy who hindred the relief of Derry till many 1000s died for want and are the cause that no more of Ireland is recovered who by manifold treachenies have obstructed affairs of greatest moment in England and Scotland We may also lose some of the Devil Tavern club it were better for us to be rid of them than to be betrayed by them in Protestant vizors As for the debauches if many or all of them depart from us the loss will not be so great as the mischief they do us by pretending to be of our Communion Let them declare themselves Fanaticks Papists any thing rather than members of the Church of England Dr. Sharps Sermon before the Commons April 11. 1679. It would perhaps be more desireable to live in a mean low afflicted condition without such Company than to govern the World with it There is great danger now of losing multitudes to the Dissenters by the continuance of Ceremonies Your coercive power is gone I can heartily say with his Lordship Bishop Burnet God be thanked for it that there is an end put to all Persecution in matters of Conscience Exhort to Peace and Vnion p. 27. and that the first and chief Right of Humane Nature of following the dictates of Conscience in the service of God is secured to all men amongst us and that we are freed I hope for ever of all the remnants of the worst part of Popery that we had too long retained I mean the Spirit of Persecution The Act of Indulgence sets all men at liberty and it comes not long after a very fierce Persecution which will increase the number of Distenters more than ever The barbarity of that Persecution the wickedness of the instruments it being carried on by perjur'd Informers and debauched Juries the dangerous design of it to fright the Dissenters or by Excommunication to disable them from assisting the sober party of our Church in choosing good Members of Parliament and honest Officers in London and other Corporations for the Preservation of our Religion and Laws these and other aggravations of that cruel storm with the continuance of Ceremonies that then armed furies against us and our brethren will breed a mighty prejudice in people against us as a most odious and contemptible generation of men if after so many miseries and confusions we do for trifles expose all the Interests of our Countrey into the greatest dangers imaginable We can impose these things upon none but the Ministers and their Clarks An unseasonable peevishness for them will make many detest our foolish superstition and forsake our Assemblies There is no keeping up their honour except we blind the people which is now impossible For if we neglect Preaching seriously the Dissenters will do it for us and in 7 years their Preachers may be increased ten to one for what they are now Our own Clergy who have a Zeal for the glory of God and the good of Souls cannot avoid promoting the work Many of them submit not to Ceremonies out of choice but as a burden from which they would gladly be delivered If they did speak out it would be as Erasmus did of wealth non magis ambio opes quà m elumbis equus graves sarcinas They are to them but as the heavy load on the Carriers staggering Horse As Knowledge increaseth Zeal for Ceremonies will grow more and more ridiculous It is the hope of many good and learned men that the time is at hand when God will deliver his Church for ever from the darkness of the Kingdom of Antichrist and that the Nations will cast away all things that have been instruments of advancing his tyranny and superstition Surely that glorious day will open mens eyes I have faith to believe that England will not be blind when other nations see Dr. Stilling Iren. p. 121. God will one day convince men