so that they were ejected not for Conscience but Intrusion whether they were just 1600 is not worth enquiry but that they all suffer'd for Conscience cannot be so clear as he pretends for I suppose neither he nor we can know the Consciences of 1600 without something of Omniscience but that all the 1600 did suffer by long Imprisonment is an unconscionable overlashing and 't is as clear as the Sun that it is a notorious Falshood He adds That many of them have dyed for want of natural Bread and that both the Shepheards and the Flocks have been starved What! Have their Ministers died with Famine Have whole Congregations perished for want of Bread This is certainly all Fiction and Romance or if you will the Rhetorick of common beggars who with doleful Complaints of Starving cheat the People into Compassion I Grant That many Families of Dissenters have been distress'd by Penal Laws thô I think he can never make it out that they were many thousands But the conclusion of this Tragedy is beyond measure extravagant If says be the Sufferings of our Brethren were written at large as the Sufferings of the Saints at other times have been Mr. Fox his Book of Martyrs would be but an Enchiridion in comparison of it That Work is an account of the Sufferings of Christians from the Crucisixion of our Saviour to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and as Voluminous as it is it has not bulk enough for the Dissenters Sufferings since the Restauration nay it is but a little Epitome in comparison They alas have suffered more in 30 years than the whole Church in 1600 and the Martyrologies of the whole Catholick Church may be infinitely exceeded by the Acts and Monuments of a few little Conventicles One would think that many Myriads of Dissenters had suffered Martyrdom That every individual Church of England-man had destroyed as many as Dioclesian and that all England had been a Sea of Blood for 30 years together when in the mean time not one of them suffered death for his Religion not many of them were ruined in their Estates and pecuniary punishments were the only persecution of almost all of them Yet he has the Confidence to say * P. 11. That the Church of England had taken into her hand the Bloody Club of Cain to Martyr the Dissenters that his Weapon was a Club is revealed to him by * P. 4. Bucheltzerus to whom the Cabala was deriv'd but that the Church of England has used it against the Dissenters is the revelation of Beelzebub for the Father of Lyes can be his only Author for it Let him name but one Dissenter that has been martyr'd by the Church and he shall have my Licence to revile her with all the odious Names from Coin to the Apocalyptick Whore in Scripture But if that be impossible he may still revile if he please but I think he will be no where believed but in his Conventicle and his Patmos so the place of his retreat is * Ep. Ded. called by the fifth Evangelist that he may be paralell'd to one of the former But this magnifying of Sufferings is an old Artifice of Dissenters so did their Ancestors the Donatists as may be seen in St. Austin and so did the Popish Priests their late Brethren and Allies in the time of Queen Elizabeth as may be seen in Creswell's Philopater and the Books of Parsons Behold how one of them exclaimeth Where are now the old Tyrants of the World Nero Decius Dioclesian Maxentius and the rest of the great Persecutors of the Christious Where is Genserick and Hunricus with their Arrian Hereticks Alluding to the Persecutions of the State here as infinitely beyond them This was just such another Outcry about Persecution as this Ministers And how did the States-men of those Times apologize for their Severity * See a Treatise of the Lord Burluigh Entitled The Execution of Justice in England for Maintenance of publick Peace The sum of thier defence was this That what they did was necessary to the Preservation of the State and that their Treasons and Seditions occasion'd the hard Laws against them And Will not the same defence serve to justifie the Laws against the Dissenters The severest * As the 1 Eliz. c. 2.23 Eliz. c. 1.35 Eliz. c. 1. Laws and the severest Proceedings against them were in the Time of Queen Elizabeth they were then suspended deprived imprison'd banish'd and some of them even * Barrow and Greenwood executed for their scandalous Writings and the ground of these Proceedings may be learnt from the Queen her self in the Speech of the Lord Keeper Puckering to the Parliament * Transeribed by Dr. Pierce from his own hand Writing and Published in his Discovery against Mr. Baxter an 1659. p. 109. which was delivered by her Command and Direction There he tells them That they were commanded by her Majesty to give no ear to the Sollicitations of the Puritans of whom he declares It may be doubted whether they or the Jesuits do offer more danger or be more speedily to be repressed and this Reason is there given for it because they publish in their Books and teach in all their Conventicles sundry Opinions not only dangerous to the Realm but also Derogatory to her sacred Majesty and her Crown and by Separation of themselves from the Vnity of their fellow Subjects and by abusing the sacred Authority of their Prince they do joyn with the Jesuits in opening the Door and preparing the Way to the Spanish Invasion that is threatned against the Realm Thus far the Queen her self by the Mouth of her Lord Keeper and so effectual was this Speech that the Parliament then passed the Act of the 35 Eliz. the severest against the Dissenters in the whole Body of our Laws But a larger account of the true Reasons of those hard Laws against the Papists and Dissenters may be seen in a * It is printed at large in Dr. Burnet's Hist of the Reform par 2 lib. 3. p. 420. Letter of Sir Francis Walsingham her Secretary to Monsieur Chiroy a Frenchman The Preservation of the State against their Seditious Practices is there assign'd as the true Cause of those Severities And as to the Puritans he concludes that after they had been a great while tolerated When they desended into that vile and base Means of Defacing the Government of the Church by ridiculous Pasquils when they began to make many Subjects in doubt to take Oaths which is one of the fundamental Points of Justice in all Places when they began both to vaunt of their Strength and Number of their Partizans and to use Comminations that their Cause would prevail through uproar and violence then it appeared to be no more Deal no more Canscience but meer Faction and Division and therefore though the State were compell'd to hold somewhat a harder hand to restrain them than before yet was it with as great a moderation as
Canons and Separation for them is alike unlawful He observes further that there were several Liturgies allowed even in the Roman Communion and that this Branch of the Churches Liberty was taken away by the Council of Trent and here in England by the Reformation And what was that Liberty which was thus abridged Not an Arbitrary Liberty in every Pastor of a Parish to use what Form he pleased but the use of different Rules of Prayer that were before prescribed and practiced in different National Churches and Dioceses The different Offices in England as those for instance after the use of Sarum and York did agree in Substance they had the same Forms of Prayer and differed for the most part in Rubricks and Ritualities only and when our first Reformers established an uniform Order it was not esteemed an Encroachment upon Christian Liberty neither are Unity Order and Uniformity the less valuable because Councils and Popes were for them 5. His next Reason is an Invective against the Introducers of Liturgies and in the midst of it he defines ex Cathedrd That the Liturgies which bear the great Names of S. James Peter Mark Basil and Chrysostome are known Forgeries That they are ent rely genuine as they are now extant is affirmed by no one but that they are Forgeries quite throughout and especially the Liturgy ascribed to St. James is so far from being known that we may safely affirm that it is impossible to know it And the contrary opinion of so Learned men as See Falkners Vindication p. 149. Baronius Ddurantus Leo Allatius Sixtus Senensis Possevinus Pamelius and others among the Romanists Dr. Hammond Thorudike Falkner Casaubon Salmotius Durel and some other Protestants will bear me out in affirming it But behold the Modesty Charity and Humility of this Minister 'T was the Ignorance Carnality Sloth and Laziness of the Clergy together with their Pride which first brought in and imposed Service-Books on the Churches When the Church began to be an Harlot when Bishops were not Silver Trumpets but tinkling Cymbals c. when in Councils as of Ephesus and Chalcedon they profest they did literas ignorare and could not write their own Names to confirm their Canons then came in our Liturgies Thus far the Son of Thunder but I take heart again for find it is brutum fulmen and our Prayer-Books are in no danger from it The Falshood and weakness of this Raillery is Schol. Hist part 2d p. 276. sufficiently exposed already and it is impossible such stuff should impose upon any but the greatest Bigots of Fanaticism Ignorance Carnality Pride and Laziness brought in Liturgies he might as well have said that Burglary or Vsury did introduce them if Pride and Ignorance brought in Liturgies why are they not read in Conventicles for In his Cure of Divisions Mr. Baxter hath complained to all the World that the People who frequent them for their Ignorance Injudiciousness Pride and Self-conceitedness are their Grief and their Shaine and certainly we may believe him But if Pride and Ignorance brought in Litugies we remember well then Entbusiasm Sacriledge and Rebellion did eject them We have Preface to Dr. Still Vnreasonableness of Separation had convincing Proofs that the Jesuits first brought extempore Prayers into England those Missionaries of Antichristian were the first Teachers of them and when Presbyterian Ministers were Trumpets to Rebellion when their Sermons and their Arms brought the best of Kings to the Scaffold when the Church was rent in pieces with damnable Doctrines when Jeroroham's Priests profaned the Pulpits and the Altars when the Stalls and the Shambles were the chief Schools of the Prophets when all Religion was vanished into Cant and Blasphemy and Nonsense were entitled to the Holy Spirit then were Liturgies first abolished and extempore Prayers first universally practised in any Christian Nation in the World But Liturgies he says were brought in when the Church began to be an Harlot Smectymnius * Answer to Remonst p. 7. derived their Pedigree from Three Canons of the Laodicean Carthaginian and Milevitan Councils and thus they are allowed to be in use about 1300 years since and has the Church been a Whore for so many Ages has she forsaken her Spouse so long has she renounced Christ Jesus for 13 Centuries together Yes and much longer too when we dispute about Episcopacy for when we come to that Controversie the Mystery of iniquity was working even in the times of the Apostles and the Church did then begin to be an Harlot also so little do some men care how they wound our common Christianity and condemn the whole Catholick Church of Christ so they may but vent their Malice against Liturgies and Bishops But because he cannot deny that Liturgies were introduced in the 4th and 5th Centuries he particularly Rallies upon the Ignorance of the Bishops of those Ages And were those ever reputed ignorant Ages when was the Church better enlightned with Learning than when Chrysostome Basil Nyssene Nahianhen Epiphanius the two Cyrills Lactantius Ambrose Jerome Augustine Isidore Pelus Theodoret Vincentius Gennadius and many others were the Luminaries of it But among these Gnosticks even the Mechanicks and the Women have been thought more able Divines than the Fathers and indeed if Ability is to be measured by the Gift of Prayer as they call it they may vye Learning even with their own Teachers for their most ignorant Zealots do often pray with as much fluency of words with as much pretence to the Spirit and which is the main Gift with as much Confidence as the ablest Ministers among them But the Bishops of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their Names and Mr. Clarkson indeed produces the Subscriptions of Three or four to prove it And to * Schol. Hist pt 2. p. 300. this it is replied That those Subscriptions are of no credit as being suspected of Forgery but suppose there were four Bishops among 830 in those Councils who were so illiterate is it not a very impudent Calumny to say indefinitely as he does That the Bishops of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their Names to confirm their Canons might it not as well be said that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster were Independants because there were Five of that Sect among them or that the Nonconformists Ministers of this Age have generally died as Traitors because Two or three were executed for being in Monmouths Rebellion His last Reason concerns the imposing of Liturgies and here he denies not the Lawfulness of them but after he has begged the belief of his Followers That they were not used in the Primitive times for many Hundred of years he pretends to prove the unlawfulness of imposing them Now one would think it a very plain Case that things lawful in themselves may be lawfully enjoyned by lawful Authority but this Minister is of another opinion and the only Reason he gives for the unlawfulness of prescribing Forms is this
the Peace of the State or Church could permit Such were the Reasons of the Laws and Prosecutions against them in the happy Days of Queen Elizabeth And have not these Observations been since confirm'd by woful Experience Is it any wonder that at the Restoration of our Church and Covernment which had been destroy'd by a most unjustifiable Rebellion when the whole Kingdom had been turn'd into an Aceldama and the best of Kings was barbarously murdered the Law-givers should look back upon the Miseries they had felt and secure the King the Kingdom and the Church against the increase of those Sectaries that had so lately destroy'd them and yet it is notorious that these Laws were never rigorously executed but when necessity requir'd it Their Assemblies were ever tolerated or connived at when themselves were pleased to shew that favour to the Government but when they began to libel associate and plot against the King and it was evident that the ruin of Church and State was again attempted and all the Sectaries were ready to contribute their Strength and Power to effect it was it not then high time for the Government to oppose them to secure it self by the Execution of Laws and to prosecute those who were resolved to ruin it They had Liberty enough till it was made a Cloak of Maliciousness and the Government did never persecute them but when it was persecuted by them How impertinem then is it to clamour at the Church because the State made Laws for its own preservation How unjust to arraign their Governors as Tyrannical because they would not be destroyed and how impious to call suffering for Sedition I ersecution for the Gospel If these Ministers had any regard to the Judgment of St. * Aug. Tom. 2. Epist 48. contra Donat. Rogat devi Corrig Haeret. Augustine it would be to some purpose to ranscribe the essicacious Reasons with which he justifies the use of Temporal Penalties for the reducing of Dissenters but however they may deal with him the agreement of their chief Divines the declar'd Judgment of their infallible Assembly and their own undeniable practice when they had power will be enough to silence and condemn them The Dissenters of late have wearied the World with their outcries against Persecution they have magnified Liberty of Conscience as the Magna Charta of Mankind and cryed it up in their Addresses to K. James as the restoring of God himself to his Empire But nothing in the World that thinks and sees can possibly believe them for their own Writings both past and present do manifestly shew that they never condemn Persecution but when they cannot Persecute It may be prov'd by a vast cloud of witnesses That Toleration has been ever damn'd by the Presbyterians and therefore it unavoidably follows that Persecution has been ever approv'd by them I could make good this by a deduction from their first Apostle Mr. Cartwright to their present Patriarch Mr. Baxter but in a Matter so notorious so much labour is unnecessary I appeal to the Testimonies of * They were these Dr. Burgess Mr. Ward Mr. William Good Mr. Tho. Thorowgood Mr. Humf. Hardwick Arthur Salwey Will. Reynar Geo. Hughes Edm. Calamy Tho. Case John Lightfoot Tho. Watson R. Baxter Tho. Horton Lazarus Serman Matt. Newcomen Richard Vines Simeon Ash James Crauford Tho. Edwards Twenty of their most eminent Preachers who in the Reign of Presbytery did in their Sermons and Writings with great Zeal inveigh against Toleration as unlawful in it self and destructive unto Church and State I refer you likewise to a very pathetical Letter to the Assembly Subscribed by all the London Divines Ann. 16â—5 wherein they expresly Declare their abhorrence of Toleration and exhort the Assembly to allow no Liberty to the Independants as being notorious Schis maticks and both this Letter and that collection of Tostimonies are to be found in a Pamphlet Entituled Toleration disprov'd which was Printed at Oxford Ann. 1670. But hear the Divines of that Assembly it self expostulating with their Dissenting Brethren the Independants * Papers of Accommodation cited by Dr. Still in his Sermon about the mischief of Separation p. 41 42. They desire an Answer to this one thing Whether some must be denied Liberty of their Conscience in matter of Practice ctice or none If none then say they we must renounce our Covenant and let in Prelacp again and all other ways If a denial of Liberty unto some may be just then Vniformity may be selted without any Tyranny They charge them farther with * Cited out of the same Papers in his unreasonableness of Speararation p. 69. opening a gap for all Sects to challenge such a Liberty as their due And add That this Liberty was denied by the Churches of New England and they have as just grounds to deny it as tdey Thus we see that not the Presbyterians only but even the new Light of Independancy is against Toleration and that persecution of Dissenters was not only their Doctrine but their Vow and Covenant also In that Covenant they Swore to extirpate Prelacy and to endeavour after Vniformity in Doctrine Discipline and Worship and is it not a wonderful Confidence in this Minister to Arraign the Church for persecuting and at the same time to contend for the obligation of a persecuting Covenant to reckon Vniformity among the accursed Stuff and then Declare that they are bound by Oath to settle it But their practice at last is the clearest demonstration of their Doctrine Behold an * An Ordinance for putting in execution the Directory August 11. 1645. Ordinance of Parliament against the use of the Liturgy If any person hereafter shall at any time use or cause to be used the Book of Common Prayer in any Church or Publick place of Worship or in any Private place or Family within the Kingdom every person so offending for the first offence shall pay the sum of Five for the Second Ten pounds and for the Third shall suffer One whole years imprisonment without Bail or Mainprize Do any of our Laws forbid the dissenters to serve God in their own Families as they please or where is there such an abridgment of Liberty in our Statute Book But yet their proceedings were much more cruel than their Ordinances so far were they from allowing any indulgence to the Church of England that they would not allow Liberty of Conscience to the Supreme Head and Governor of it They refused to permit their King the use of the Common Prayer in his own Chappel and infisted to obtrude the Directory upon him against his Conscience so that he had reason to complain as he did Decl. of Jun. 18. after the Votes of Nun-Addresses of their offering violence to the Conscience of their Sovereign and to say If it be Liberty of Conscience they desire he who wants it is most ready to give it Nay those Prosbyterians when they had him in their custody were
the right and have witnessed to the Truth then ought the Church of England to hang down her head c. And thus as he states the case himself if the Dissenters have not witnessed to the Truth the Church of England is not guilty and all their Outcries about Persecution must pass for nothing Here then lies the stress of the dispute Whether the Nonconformists have Truth on their side and were therefore really persecuted for Righteousness-sake I proceed therefore to examine Q. The Reasons and Objections which he pleads for his Non conformity His first Stumbling block is the Subscription in the Act of Vniformity with the Oath in the Oxford Act in which are these Words I. A. B. do declare That it is unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King Again I do swear That it is not lawful c. He adds we refused thus to declare and swear and he requires three Things to be observed First A man may believe a Proposition to be true but would not be willing to swear it and this Objection is a perfect Cavil He that asserts a Proposition to be true does mean only that he is convinced of its Truth and he that swears it is true does only call God to witness that he is convinced of it Nothing is more obvious than that in all assertory Oaths when we swear to the Truth of Things we are understood to declare no more than our own Belief and Knowledge concerning them and thus when I swear that it is unlawful to resist nothing more can be understood than that I am fully satisfied of it if I believe it unlawful I may subscribe and declare that it is so and if I cam do that I may also swear it since in this Case an Oath superadded to a Declaration must follow the nature of the Principal and can be nothing else but a Sacred Confirmation of my sincerity in declaring and I am morally certain that no Magistrate in England would have refused to administer the Oath with this Interpretation Secondly he objects that Barclay Grotius and others who have written in favour of Kings do yet allow some Cases in which it is lawful to resist them and if a King does govern by his Will and not by Law he doth excidere de jure that is he forfeits his Right to Govern I answer that an Arbitrary King does forfeit his Right is affirmed by neither of these Authors but is contradicted by them and though it be true that Barelay Grotius and others whether Republicans Jesuits or Presbyterians have allowed Exceptions for resisting yet I am sure the Holy Ghost has made none in Scripture they that resist shall receive Damnation is denounced without any Limitation and how shall we limit where GOD hath not limited or distinguish where He hath not distinguished So was the Rule understood and practiced by the first and best of Christians so was it taught by the first Reformers of our Church and some of them with their Blood bore witness to it The Popes were the first Christians that taught Resistance but though an Augel from Heaven had taught it we have received another Doctrine and could not have departed from it Thirdly he adds That all the Nobility and Gentry of England and Scotland and all the Protestant Princes beyond Sea in their Proceedings against King James have justified the Nonconformists in refusing the Oath Now I have no Correspondence with all these Princes Nobility and Gentry and therefore know not their minds about it but I am sure he cannot make good his all without taking Sanctuary in Hyperbole There be many that think those Proceedings may be justified without justifying Resistance but I believe there are no Princes that will allow it against themselves and if the Majority of the Nobility and Gentry do justifie what they once condemn'd their Authority can be urged on neither side and though there he a Revolution of Opinions as well as Governments yet the nature of Things is immutable and Truth the same yesterday to day and for ever His Second scruple is about Reordination as tho' Ordination by Presbyters were not sufficient without the laying on of the hands of those we now call Bishops But first since this Minister hath now undertaken to argue he should have prov'd that Reordination implys a Nullity of their former Orders But as no Declaration of their insufficiency is requir'd so neither is it imply'd in the nature of the thing nor understood to be so by Construction of the Fact as appears from the Reordination of many French Ministers whose Orders have never been condemned by our Church who never intended to renource them by that Action nor are supposed to do so Secondly tho' the Ordination of Presbyters be granted to be sufficient yet this will not justify the Nonconformists Ordinations There is all evidnet difference betwixt the Case of these Ministers and the Presbyters of some Foreign Churches 1. Those Foreign Divines tho' their Churches are not under Episcopal Government yet they do not separate from Episcopal Communion but have all own'd Commun on with the Church of England Blondel their best Advocate for Presbyterian Parity does yet condemn Separation from Bishop as Schismatical and expresly * Praef. ad Apol. p. 59. declares that Aerius was therefore an Heretick because he asserted That separation was to be made from those who admitted any difference between Bishops and Presbyters But their approving of Episcopal Government and coadmning Separation from it as Schismatical has been so often so irrefragably * Ibid p. 47 and Bramhall's Replication to affirm the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 164 of his Works proved that there can be no longer any Controversie about it But on the other side the present Nonconformists do make Episcopal Government the chief reason of their Separation and condemn it as unlawful and Antichristian which no Resormed Church or Divine that we know did ever before them and this is certainly a very material difference between them 2. The Ordination of Presbyters withou Bishops in those Foreign Churches has been generally defended by the plea of Necessity thus it has been defended by some of the Foreign †Bishop Hall's and Mortons Bcoks in defence of Eiscopacy Archbishop Bramhall in his Sup. Dr. Durell's Church Government Saywell's Evangelical and Catholick Unity and lately in the Judgment of Foreign reformed Divines Divines themselves and thus by many * As Downham Mason Field Andrews and leately by Dr. Sherlock in his Vindication of the defence of Dr. Still Divines of our own Church As their circumstances were it was impossible for them to have Bishops and therefore they wanted them out of invincible necessity whereas our Presbyterians are uncapal le of that Plea they reject the Authority of Bishops and Ordain in opposition to them and therefore it is evident they are under no necessity and consequently their Orders may be thought in ufficient without impeaching the