a Riot are as invisible in a Dissenters Meeting as Christ in the Transubstantiation yet it must be a Riot without any more to do The English of which is 't is a Riot to pray to God in the humblest and peaceablest manner in a Conventicle I know it is said The Blood-shed in the fore-going Raign and the Plots of the Papists against Queen Elizabeth drew those Laws from the Church of England But this was no reason why she should do ill because they had done so Besides it may be answered that that Religion having so long intermixt it self with worldly Power it gave way to take the revenges of it And certainly the great men of the Church of England endeavouring to intercept Queen Mary by proclaiming the Lady Jane Gray and the Apprehension the Papists had of the better Title of Mary Queen of Scots together with a long Possession were scurvy Temptations to kindle ill Designs against that extraordinary Queen But tho nothing can excuse and less justifie those cruel Proceedings yet if there were any reason for the Laws it is plainly removed for the Interests are joyn'd and have been since King James the first came to the Crown However 't is certain there were Laws enough or they might have had them to punish all civil Enormities without the necessity of making any against them as Papists And so the civil Government had stood upon its own Legs and Vices only against it had been punishable by it In short it was the falsest Step that was made in all that great Queens Raign the most dishonourable to the Principles of the first Reformers and therefore I know no better Reason why it should be continued than that which made the Cardinal in the History of the Council of Trent oppose the Reformation at Rome That tho it was true that they were in the wrong yet the admitting of it approved the judgment of their Enemies and so good-night to Infallibility Let not this be the Practice of the Church of England and the rather because she does not pretend to it But let her reflect that she has lost her King from her Religion and they that have got him naturally hope for ease for theirs by him that 't is the end they labour'd and the great use they have for him and I would fain wonder that she never saw it before but whether she did or no why should she begrudg it at least refuse it now Since 't is plain that there is nothing we esteem dangerous in Popery that other Laws are not sufficient to secure us from Have we not enough of them let her think of more and do the best she can to discover Plotters punish Traitors suppress the Seditious and keep the Peace better than those we have can enable us to do But for Gods sake let us never direct Laws against Men for the cause of Religion or punish them before they have otherwise done amiss Let Mens Works not their Opinions turn the Edg of the Magistrates Sword against them else 't is Beheading them before they are Born. By the common Law of this Kingdom there must be some Real and Proper Overt Act that proves Treason some Malice that proves Sedition and some violent Action that proves a Rout or Riot If so to call any sort of Religious Orders the one or Praying to God in a way out of fashion the other is prepostrous and punishing People for it down right Murther or Breach of the Peace according to the true use of Words and the old Law of England If the Church of England fears the growth of Popery let her be true to the Religion she owns and betake her self to Faith rather than Force by a pious humble and a good Example To convince and perswade which is the highest honour to any Church and the greatest Victory over Men. I am for a National Church as well as she so it be by Consent and not by Constraint But Coercive Churches have the same Principle tho not the same Interest A Church by Law established is a State Church and that is no Argument of Verity unless the State that makes her so be infallible and because that will not be asserted the other can never oblige the Conscience and consequently the Compulsion she uses is unreasonable This very Principle justifies the King of France and the Inquisition For Laws being equally of Force in all Countries where they are made it must be as much Fault in the Church of Englands Judgment to be a Protestant at Rome or a Calvanist at Paris as to be a Papist at London Then where is Truth or Conscience but in the Laws of Countries which renders her an Hobbist notwithstanding her long and loud Clamours against the Leviathan I beg her for the love of Christ that she would think of these things and not esteem me her Enemy for performing the part of so good a Friend Plain Dealing becomes that Caracter no matter whether the Way be agreeable so it be right We are all to do our Duty and leave the rest to God He can best answer for our Obedience that Commands it and our Dependance upon his Word will be our Security in our Conduct What weight is it to a Church that she is the Church by Law established when no humane Law can make a true Church A true Church is of Christs making and is by Gospel established 'T is a Reflection to a Church that would be thought true to stoop to humane Law for her Establishment I have been often scandal'd at that Expression from the Sons of the Church of England especially those of the Robe What do you talk for our Religion is by Law established as if that determin'd the Question of its Truth against all other Perswasions The Jews had this to say against our Saviour We have a Law and by our Law he ought to Dye The Primitive Christians and some of our first Reformers Dyed as by Law established if that would mend the matter but does that make it lawful to a Christian Conscience we must ever demur to this Plea. No greater Argument of a Churches Defection from Christianity than turning Persecutor 'T is true the Scripture says The Earth shall help the Woman but that was to save her self not to destroy others For 't is the Token that 's given by the Holy Ghost of a false Church That none must Buy or Sell in her Dominions that will not receive her Mark in their Forehead or Right-hand That is by going to Church against Conscience or bribing lustily to stay at Home Things don't change tho men do Persecution is still the same let the hand alter never so often but the Sin may not For doubtless it is greatest in those that make the highest claim to Reformation For while they plead their own Light for doing so they hereby endeavour to extinguish anothers Light that can't concur What a Man can't do it is not his Fault he don't do nor
managed it civilly for a while but Ambition in some and Covetousness in others on the one hand and Discretion giving way to Resentment on the other they first ply the Queen and her Ministers and when that ended in favour of the Men of Ceremony the others arraigned them before the first Reformers abroad at Geneva Bazil Zurich c. The leading Prelates by their Letters as Doctor Burnet lately tells us in his Printed Relation of his Travels clear themselves to those first Doctors of any such Imputation and lay all upon the Queen who for Reasons of State would not be brough to so Inceremonious a way of Worship as that of the Calvanists At this time there were Papists Protestants Evangelists Praecisians Vbiquitists Familists or Enthusiasts and Anabaptists in England when the very first Year of her Reign a Law for Vniformity in Worship and Discipline was enacted and more followed of the severest Nature and sometimes executed Thus then we see that there never was such a thing as a Church of England since the Days of Popery that is a Church of Communion containing all the People of the Kingdom and so cannot be said to be so much as a Twin of the Reformation nevertheless she got the Blessing of the Civil Magistrate She made him great to be great by him If She might be the Church He should be the Head. Much good may the Bargain do her Now is the time for her to stand to her Principle I never knew any body exceed their Bounds that were not met with at last If we could escape Men God we cannot his Providence will overtake us and find us out By all this then it appearing that the Church of England was not the Nation the Case is plain that the Penal Laws were a Make-bate for they Sacrificed every sort of People whose Consciences differed from the Church of England which first put the Romanist upon flattering Prerogative and courting its Shelter from the wrath of those Laws The Address could not be unpleasant to Princes and we see it was not for King James that came in with Invectives against Popery entring the List with the Learn'd of that Church and charging her with all the Marks the Revelation gives to that of Antichrist grew at last so tame and easy towards the Romanists that our own Story tells us of the Fears of the encrease of Popery in the latter Parliament of his Reign In King Charles the First 's time no body can doubt of the Complaint because that was in great measure the drift of every Parliament and at last one Reason of the War. On the other hand the Severity of the Bishops against Men of their own Principles and in the main of their own Communion either because they were more zealous in Preaching more followed of the People or could not wear some odd Garment and less lead the Dance on a Lords Day at a Maypole the Relique of Flora the Roman Strumpet or perhaps for rubbing upon the Ambition Covetousness and Laziness of the Dignified and Ignorance and Loosness of the ordinary Clergy of the Church of which I could produce Five hundred gross Instances I say these things breed bad Blood and in part gave beginnings to those Animosities that at last broke forth with some other Pretences into áll those National Troubles that agitated this poor Kingdom for Ten Years together in which the Church of England became the greatest Looser Her Clergy turn'd out her Nobility and Gentry Sequestred Decimated Imprisoned c. And whatever she is pleased to think nothing is truer then that her Penal Laws and Conduct in the Star-Chamber and high Commission Court in matters of Religion was her overthrow 'T is as evident the same Humour since the Restoration of the late King has had almost the same Effect For nothing was grown so little and contemptible as the Church of England in this Kingdom she now intitles her self the Church of Witness the Elections of the last three Parliaments before this I know it may be said the Persons chosen were Church goers I confess it for the Law would have them so But no body were more avers to the Politicks of the Clergy insomuch that the Parson and the Parish almost every where divided upon the question of their Election In truth it has been the Favour and Countenence of the Crown and not her intrinsick Interest or Value that has kept her up to this Day else her Penal Laws the Bulwork of the Church of England by the same figure than she is one against Popery had sunk her long since I hope I may by this time conclude without offence that the Penal Laws have been a Make-bate in the great Family of the Kingdom setting the Father against his Children and Brethren against Brethren not only giving the Empire to one but endeavouring to extinguish the rest and that for this the Church of England has once paid a severe Reckoning I apply it thus Is it not her Interest to be careful she does it not a second time she has a fair Opportunity to prevent it and keep her self where she is that is the Publick Religion of the Country with the real Maintenance of it which is a plain preference to all the rest If she hopes by her Aversion to a general Ease to set up for a Bulwork against Popery one Year will show the trick and mightily deceive her and the Oppertunity will be lost and another Bargain driven I dare assure her mightily to her Disadvantage Violence and Tyranny are no natural Consequences of Popery for then they would follow every where and in all places and times alike But we see in twenty Governments in Germany there is none for Religion nor was not for an Age in France and in Poland the Popish Cantons of Switzerland Venice Lucca Colonia c. where that Religion is Dominant the People enjoy their Ancient and Civil Rights a little more steadily than they have of late time done in some Protestant Countries nearer home almost ever since the Reformation Is this against Protestancy No but very much against Protestants For had they been true to their Principles we had been upon better Terms So that the Reformation was not the Fault but not keeping to it better than some have done For whereas they were Papists that both obtain'd the Great Charter and Charter of Forests and in the successive Reigns of the Kings of their Religion Industriously laboured the Confirmation of them as the great Text of their Liberties and Properties by above thirty other Laws we find almost an equal Number to Destroy them and but one made in their Favour since the Reformation and that shrowdly against the will of the high Church-men too I mean the Petition of Right in the third Year of Charles the first In short They desire a legal Security with us and we are afraid of it least it should insecure us when nothing can do it so certainly as their
if dispersed to be sure they have not strength for such an Attempt But if they are not sufficient there is a Potent Prince not far off can help the Design who is not angry with Protestancy at home only Suppose this is there not as Potent Naval Powers to assist the Constitution of the Kingdom from such Invasions yes and Land ones too And as the Protestant Governments have more Ships then the other so an equal Land Force when by such attempts to make Popery universal they are awaken'd to the use of them But certainly we must be very silly to think the King should suffer so great a shake to his own Interest as admitting an Army of Forraigners to enter his Kingdom on any pretence must necessarily occasion These Bull-Beggers and Raw-Heads and Bloody-Bones are the Malice of some and Weakness of others But time that Informs Children will tell the World the meaning of the Fright The third Proof of my second Reason is the Intestine Division among themselves That Division weakens a great Body and renders a small one harmless all will agree Now that there is such a thing as Division among them is town talk The Seculars Regulars have ever been two Interests all the Roman Church over and they are not only so here but the Regulars differ among themselves There is not a Coffee-House in Town that does not freely tell us that the Jesuites and Benedictines are at variance that Count Da Da the Popes Nuncio and Bishop Lyborn Dissent mightily from the Politicks of the first Nay t'other Day the Story was that they had prevail'd Entirely over them The Lords and Gentlemen of her Communion have as warmly contested about the lengths they ought to go Moderation seems to be the conclusion Together they are little and can do little and divided they are Contemptible instead of Terrible Lastly the Roman Church ought to be discreet and think of nothing further then the entreated general Ease because it would be an extream that must beget another in the succeeding Raign For as I can never think her so weak as well as base that after all her Arguments for the Jus divinum of Succession she should in the Face of the World attempt to violate it in the wrong of One of another Perswasion for that were an eternal loss of her with Mankind So if she does not and yet is Extravagant she only rises higher to fall lower then all others in another Raign This were provoking their own Ruin. And to say true either way would as the second Letter has it discredit her for ever and make true Prophets of those they had taken such pains to prove false Witnesses And supposing her to reckon upon the just Succession nothing can recommend her or continue her happiness in a Raign of another Judgment but this Liberty equally maintained that other Perswasions more numerous for that reason as well as for their own sakes are obliged to insure her Here the Foundation is broad and strong and what is built upon it has the looks of long Life The Indenture will at least be quint-pertite and Parties are not so mortal as Men. And as this joyns so it preserves Interest intire which amounts to a Religious Amity and a Civil Vnity at the worst Upon the whole matter I advise the Members of the Roman Communion in this Kingdom to be moderate 't is their Duty and it belongs to all Men to see it and feel it from them and it behoves them mightily they would for the first part of this Discourse belongs to their Hopes as well as to the Church of Englands Fears viz. the Duty and Spirit of Christianity Next let them do good Offices between the King and his excellent Children for as that will be well taken by so affectionate a Father so it gives the lie to their Enemies Suggestions and recommends them to the Grace and Favour of the Successors And having said this I have said all that belongs to them in particular There is left only my Address to the Protestant Dissenters and a general Conclusion to finish this Discourse Your Case that are called Protestant Dissenters differs mightily from that of the Church of England and Rome For the first have the Laws for her the last the Prince Those Laws are against you and she is not willing they should be Repeal'd The Prince offers to be kind to you if you please Your Interest in this Conjuncture is the Question I think none ought to be made that it is the Liberty of Conscience desired because you have much more need of it having neither Laws nor Prince of your side nor a Successor of any of your Perswasions The Fears of Popery I know reach you but it is to be remembered also that if the Laws are not Repeal'd there wants no new ones to Destroy you of the Papists making so that every fear you are taught to have of their Repeal is against your selves Suppose your Apprehensions well grounded you can but be Destroy'd Which is most comfortable for you to suffer by Law or without it The Church of England by her Penal Laws and the Doctrine of Headship has Armed that Religion as it falls out to Destroy you Nay has made it a Duty in the King to do it from which says she nothing but an Act of Parliament can absolve him that she is not willing to allow And is it not as reasonable that you should seek their Repeal that if you suffer from the Papists It may be without human Law as well as against Christs Law as for the Church of England to keep them in force because if she suffers it shall be against the Laws made to uphold her For not repealing them brings you an inevitable mischief and her at most but an uncertain safety tho 't is certain she at the same time will Sacrifice you to it And yet if I were in her case it would please me better to remove Laws that might reproach me and stop my Mouth when turn'd against me and be content that if I Suffer for my Religion it is against the Law of God Christianity and the Fundamentals of the old and true Civil Government of my Country before such Laws helpt to spoil it In short you must either go to Church or Meet or let fall your Worshipping of God in the way you believe If the first you are Hypocrites and give away the Cause and reproach your dead Brethrens Sincerity and gratifie the old accusation of Schism Ambition c. and finally loose the Hope and Reward of all your Sufferings If the second viz. that you Meet against Law you run into the Mouth of the Government whose Teeth are to meet in you and Destroy you as by Law established If the last you deny your Faith over-throw your own Arguments fall away from the Apostolical Doctrine of assembling together and so must fall into the Hands of God and under the troubles of your own
be of the same Judgment That Conscience ought not to be forced nor Religion imposed upon men at their civil peril I own they are all of that mind at one time or other and therefore that I may purge my self of any Animosity to the Doctrine of the Church of England I will Ingeniously confess the severe conduct I have argued against is not to be imputed to her Principles but then her Evil will be the greater that in fact has so notoriously contradicted them I know some of her defenders will hardly allow that too Tho the more candid give us their Silence or Confession For they tell us 't is not the Church that has done it which unless they mean the Laws were not made a Church must needs be false since those that made and executed them were of her own Communion and are that great body of Members that constitute her a Church but by her shifting them off 't is but reasonable to conclude that she tacitly condemns what she publickly disowns One would think then it should not be so hard to perswade her to quit them in the way she made them or to injoyn her Sons to do it if that language be to harsh for her This Story she must hear of some way and I pray God she may endeavour to do her duty in it She is not alone for every Party in Power has too evidently lapst into this Evil tho under the prevalency and persecution of another Interest they have ever writ against club Law for Religion And to the end that I may do the Reformation Right and the Principles of the Church of England Justice I must say that hardly one person of any note dyed in the time of Queen Mary that did not pass Sentance upon Persecution as Antichristian particularly Latimer Philpot Bradford Rogers very Eminent Reformers The Apologies that were writ in those times are of the same strain as may be seen in Jewel Haddon Reynalds c. and the Papists were with reason thought much in the wrong by those Primative Protestants for the Persecution that they raised against them for matters of pure Religion But what need we go so far back is it not recent in memory that Bishop Vsher was Employ'd to O. Cromwell by some of the Clergy of the Church of England for Liberty of Conscience Dr Parr in the Life of Dr Vsher Primate of Armagh fol. 75. has that passage thus Cromwell forbidding the Clergy under great penalties to teach Schools or to perform any part of their ministerial function some of the most Considerable Episcopal Clergy in and about London desired my Lord Primate that he would use his Interest with Cromwell since they heard he pretended a great respect for him that as he granted Liberty of Conscience to almost all sorts of Religions so the Episcopal Divines might have the same freedom of serving God in their private Congregations since they were not premitted the publick Churches according to the Liturgie of the Church of England and that neither the Ministers nor Those that frequented That Service might be any more hindered or disturbed by his Souldiers So according to their desire he went and used his utmost Endeavours with Cromwell for the taking off this restraint which was at last promised tho with some difficulty that they should not be molested provided they meddled not with any matters relating to his Government Certainly those Gentlemen were of my mind And to give Dr Hammond his due who I understand was one of them he left it to the Witnesses of his end as his dying Counsel to the Church of England That they displaced no man out of the University or present Church but that by Love and an holy Life they should prevail upon those in possession to come into their Church But this lookt so littie like the Policy and Ambition of the Living that they resolved it should be Buried with him This I had from an eminent Hand in Oxford a year or two after his Death An older man out liv'd him and one of the most Learned and Pious of that Communion Bishop Sande son I mean They were the two great men of their sort that was of the Party Let us see what this Reverend man says to our point The Word of God doth expressly forbid us to subject our Consciences to the Judgment of any other or to usurp a Dominion over the Consciences of any One. Several cases of Conscience discussed in ten Lectures in the Divinity School at Oxford 3 Lect. 30 Sect. pag. â—03 Printed 1660. He is not worthy to be Christs Disciple who is not the Disciple of Christ alone The Simplicity and Sincerity of the Christian Faith hath suffered a great prejudice since we have been divided into Parties neither is their any hope that Religion should be restored to her former Original and Purity until the Wounds that were made wider by our daily Quarrels and Dissentions being anointed with the Olye of Brotherly Love as with a Balsom shall begin to close again and to grow entire into the same Unity of Faith and Charity ibid Sect. 29. The obligation of Conscience doth not signifie any Compulsion for to speak properly the Conscience can no more be compelled than the Free-will ibid 4. Lecture Sect. 5. pag. 109. The express Commandment of God doth oblige the Conscience properly by it self and by its own force and this obligation is absolute because it doth directly and always oblige and because it obligeth all persons and the obligation of it is never to be cancelled Noâ—e but God alone hath power to impose a Law upon the Conscience of any Man to which it ought to be subjected as obliging by it sâ—lf This Conclusion is proved by the words of the Apostle There is but one Law-giver who can both save and destroy In which words two Arguments do profer themselves to our Observation In the first place they assert there is but one Legislator not one picked out amongst many not one above many but one exclusively that is to say One and but one only The Apostle otherwise had made use of a very ineffectual argument to prove what he had propounded for he rebuketh those who unadvisedly did pass their Judgment either on the persons or the deeds of other Men as the Invaders of their Rights Who art Thou saith he who dost judge another as if he should have said dost thou know thy self what thou art and what thou dost It doth not belong to Thee to thrust thy sawcy Sickle into the harvest of another Man much less boldly to fling thy self into the Throne of Almighty God. If already Thou art Ignorant of it then know that it belongeth to him alone to judge of the Consciences of men to whom alone it doth belong to impose Laws upon the Consciences of men which none can do but God alone ibid pag. 111 112 113. The Condition and Natural estate of the Conscience it self is so placed as it were