such a mixture of Blasphemy and Rebellion when men shall commit such horrid and emphatical Villanies and then shall with so steel'd a Confidence warrant not only their Lawfulness but their Necessity by vertue of a divine Commission and shall break all the Laws of Nature Society and Religion by the Counsel under the Conduct and with the Approbation of the Almighty In short there is scarce a Principle of Blasphemy or Rebellion in the Alcoran that this Wretch has not vouched upon divine Authority He is a Person of such a rank Complexion that he would have vyed with Mahomet himself both for boldness and imposture The divine Majesty never had a dearer and more familiar Achitophel than he they were always through the whole course of the War privy to each others Counsels were always of the same side and drove on always the same designs and had this man been of the Cabinet Council of Heaven he could not have pretended a greater and more intimate acquaintance with the Intrigues of Providence And now I leave it to the World to judge whether it be not becoming our Authors Modesty to charge it upon me as a monstrous Fiction for saying there have been men who have taught that to pursue success in Rebellion is to follow the guidance of Providential Dispensations § 7. Our Authors imprudence and unadvisedness in forcing me upon the proof of my last Charge in defence of my own Integrity recals to my mind another resembling Instance of his discretion in provoking me to an unnecessary Dispute where 't is impossible for him to escape a manifest and dishonourable Baffle viz. that the Pretence of Religion had no concernment in our late Rebellion or Civil War And though I do not remember where I ever affirmed it was yet is he upon every occasion upbraiding and challenging me to prove it and whereas in my first Chapter I chanced to observe that it has frequently been made use of as a covering for unruly and seditious Practices without descending to particular Instances for they are too many to be specified in a small Volume he will needs have me to aim in particular at our late Wars and Tumults and appeals to the publick Writings Declarations and Treaties whereby those Tumults and Wars were begun and carried on And then we shall find that Authority Laws and Priviledges and I know not what things wherein private men have no pretence of Interest were pleaded in those Affairs And upon this string he is again rubbing to as little Purpose in this Chapter Neither is he singular in this conceit and confidence there are others that have as well as himself sounded their Alarms from the Pulpit against Antichristian Idolatry and Oppression and have chafed popular zeal and rage to fight for the purity and beauty of Gospel Ordinances who yet blush not to declare in publick with such a competent measure of confidence are they gifted that the cause of Religion was not pretended or engaged in the Quarrel but that it was a meer Contest about Civil Rights and Priviledges Now though this concerns not me in my own defence yet will I a little concern my self in the Enquiry to discover the honesty and ingenuity of these men that will blow hot and cold out of the same mouth affirm and deny the same thing as it suits with their present Occasion and present Interest And are they not arrived to an heroick pitch of Confidence that dare protest so boldly and so publickly in defiance of so many publick Acts Ordinances Protestations Covenants Engagements Declarations Remonstrances Treaties of peace and Overtures of Accommodation in all which preservation of Religion and demands of Reformation still lead the Van and the sense and substance of all the numberless Papers of Lords and Commons amounts to no more than this that they were resolved to expose their lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of the true Religion his Majesties Person and Honour the Power and Priviledges of Parliament and the just Rights and Liberties of the Subject All these Pretences came in of course but still Religion was the first and dearest grievance and its Preservation more tender to them than their lives and liberties As in the Observation upon the Lord Digbys Letters the Lords and Commons declare that they had never done any thing against the personal honour of the Queen only we have desired to be secured from such plots and mischievous designs that they might not have the favour of the Court and such a powerful influence upon his Majesties Counsels as they have had to the extream hazard not only of Civil Liberty and peace of the Kingdom but of that we hold much dearer than these yea than the very being of this Nation that is our Religion whereupon depends the honour of Almighty God and the salvation of our Souls And this was their perpetual answer to all his Majesties Propositions that his Counsels were over-ruled by a malignant party of Papists and other ill-affected persons that carried on their own wicked designs of rooting up the Protestant Religion to plant Popery and Superstition Innumerable are the proofs to this purpose but we will content our selves because it will be sufficient with these few particulars First then 't is notorious the Scottish broils and tumults were raised purely upon a pretence of Religion being begun about the reading the Common-Prayer and not a little promoted by that senseless Pamphlet A Dispute against the English Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland And the only Conditions of quieting these Troubles were 1. That the Provost and City-Council should join in opposition to the Service-Book 2. That Ramsey and Rollock two silenced Ministers and Henderson a silenced Reader should be restored to their places And not long after there came a Petition of Noblemen Barons Ministers Burgesses and Commons and about what do we think but against the Liturgy and Canons And the next news we hear from thence was That the King having adjourned the Term to Sterling by Proclamation the Earl of Hume and Lord Lindsey protest against it and erect four Tables of the Nobility Gentry Burroughs and Ministers the first Act of which is to enter a general Covenant in defence of Religion and for fashions sake the Kings Person This business of Scotland is an affair not unworthy the mentioning not only because it was well known what invitation they had from their Party to enter England but also because the Parliament here owned their Cause took it unkindly of the King for calling them Rebels voted them a great Supply under the name of a Friendly Assistance and called them their dear Brethren of Scotland And withal did particularly own the Scotch Tumults as raised upon a religious account this we have themselves confessing in a Declaration to satisfie the World of the justice of raising Arms wherein they declare Religion the principal thing and all others subservient to it
to they are new Acts and distinct Duties or Crimes of their respective species of vertue or vice Thus though to slay a deprehended Adulteress which is murther in England though it be Justice in Spain relates to the manner of Execution yet 't is a new and distinct Instance of that Sin made by a Civil Constitution and not determined by the divine Law But then here is no more ascribed to the Magistrate than is common with him to every man in the World So much the firmer my Argument For 't is not reasonable to deny so much Power to publick Authority as every private man may claim and exercise nor just to forbid Magistrates to command that to their Subjects which their Subjects may lawfully command to themselves But after all this trifling he leaps to a fresh Enquiry for he is old excellent at asking Questions when he should be making Answers viz. if Magistrates are impower'd to declare new Instances of Vertue and Vice he demands Whether they are new as Vertues and Vices or as Instances This is a captious Question and though I suspect some subtle plot yet I have not sagacity enough to find out either its design or its Sophistry and therefore I shall only answer like a plain and cautious man that they are new neither as Instances nor as Vertues and Vices but as Instances of Vertue and Vice and then what becomes of this Metaphysical Dilemma But however it follows if they are new as Vertues would he could see a new Practice of old Vertues but alas this neither proves nor confutes and yet because 't is said it must be answered therefore I will only demand of him what are the old Vertues he intends whether those that were in fashion in the days of King Arthur or those that were so in the days of King Oliver But to tell you the truth he cares not for any of the new Vertues that he has lately observed in the World Likely enough for Loyalty is one of the chiefest but they were fine days when Rebellion and Sacriledge were signs of Grace and men could keep up a dear and intimate Communion with God in ways of plunder and perjury ah those were precious and Gospel-times You see I must either trifle with this man or altogether hold my Peace his Objections are not capable of solid Answers But he concludes If it be the Instances that are new they are but actual and occasional exercises of old Duties This is trifling too and neither objects nor proves however 't is already answered and though I have been so idly employed as to follow him in his Trifles yet I will not in his Tautologies CHAP. V. The Contents OVr Authors wretched perverting and falsifying even the Contents of the Chapter Another notorious Forgery that I have confined the Power of Conscience purely to inward Thoughts Christian Liberty proved to be a Branch of the Natural Freedom of our Minds The Discourses of the Apostles concerning Christian Liberty are onely Disputes against the Eternal Obligation of the Law of Moses So that nothing can restrain it but Gods own immediate and explicite Commands This proved from the Practice and Precepts of St. Paul Our Adversaries are the most guilty of any Men in the World of intrenching upon our Christian Liberty It is as much infringed by the Common Law as by Ecclesiastical Canons Their Notion of Christian Liberty cannot but be a perpetual Nursery of Schisms and Divisions This mystery of Libertinism began first to work among the Gnosticks and was checkt by the Apostles A ridiculous Calumny that from my Notion of Christian Liberty charges me of asserting the indifferency of all Religions A farther account of the Original of Sacrifices they that derive them from the Law of Nature relie purely upon the testimony of some ancient Grecians The ground of their mistake who refer them to Divine Institution is their not attending to the difference between Eucharistical Oblations and Expiatory Sacrifices An account how the Religion of Sacrifices might acquire a Catholique Practice without any Obligation of Nature or Warranty of Divine Institution How Abel's Sacrifice might be offered in Faith without any revealed Command to require it A shameful instance of our Authors way of begging the Question And another of his Tergiversation A farther account of the prodigious Impertinency of their Clamours against significant Ceremonies The blockishness of their excepting against them upon the score of their being Sacraments The impossibility of making this good out of Scripture and the folly of attempting its proof any other way The vanity of distinguishing between Customary and Instituted Symbols Our Authors ridiculous state and determination of this Debate The Impertinency of that difference he endeavours to assign between the signification of Words and Ceremonies § 1. NOw our Authors Invention begins to grow dry and his Fancy to run low he is forced to flie to his old Magazines for Arms and Ammunition and to muster up his former Cavils for fresh Arguments and his former Calumnies for fresh Objections and to stuff up his following Pages with meer Tautologies and Repetitions of his former shifts and juglings He cannot forbear to argue from his own Topicks and in his own Method but still he pretends first to be at a loss for my meaning and then he perverts it and then he confutes it And 't is observable how careful he is always to usher in his Falsifications with complaints of my Obscurity that so if he should fail to justifie them he may at least be able to excuse them and when he is beaten out of his Cause he may under this reserve secure his Honour and discharge the perverseness and disingenuity of his own labour'd Mistakes upon the perplexity of my Stile and the looseness of my Expressions The first thing he takes to task and to correction is the Contents of the Chapter for he has now done with confuting my Title-Page where I represented the scope and short design of my first Paragraph in these words Mankind have a Liberty of Conscience over all their Actions whether moral or strictly religious as far as it concerns their Iudgments but not their Practices And here I could have been content had he dealt no worse with me than they are wont to deal with the Holy Scriptures when they interpret the Chapter by the English Contents and so expound the sense of the Word of God as if that were onely the Gloss but these the Canon Otherwise I am sure I. O. could never have made good his deep Conceit of the Saints distinct Communion with each Person of the blessed Trinity out of the Parable of the Canticles But this Author has as well he may made more bold with me and has mangled my single Assertion into two distinct Propositions viz. That Mankind has a Liberty of Conscience over all their Actions whether moral or strictly religious And this he closes up with a full Period as if
and as to this particular business of the Scots they speak thus When they i. e. Papists Clergy and other Enemies of Religion conceived the way sufficiently prepared they at last resolved to put on their Master-piece in Scotland where the same method had been followed and more boldly unmask themselves in imposing upon them a Popish Service-Book for well they knew the same Fate attended both Kingdoms and Religion could not be altered in one without the other God raised the Spirits in that Nation to oppose it with so much zeal and indignation that it kindled such a flame as no expedient could be found but a Parliament here to quench it i. e. By hiring and tempting them to a new Rebellion at the price of one hundred thousand Pound beside the reward of Pay and Plunder for the common Souldiers the promise of Church-Revenues for the chief Promoters of the service the sacrifice of the Archbishop of Canterbury to their malice and revenge and what was most likely to endear the Cause the Reformation of the Discipline and Worship of the Church of England by the Model of the Kirk of Scotland that absolute Pattern of a thorough godly Rebellion Again The Declaration of Lords and Commons March 2. orders this Kingdom to be put in a posture of defence by Sea and Land because there was a design by those in greatest Authority about the King for the altering of Religion That the Scottish War was fomented and the Irish Rebellion framed for that purpose That they had Advertisements from Venice and Paris and Rome that the King was to have four thousand men out of France and Spain which could be to no other end than to change his own Profession and the Publick Religion of the Kingdom In the 19 Propositions sent Iune 2. 1642. the eighth is this That your Majesty will be pleased to consent that such a Reformation be made of the Church-Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise c. And the 17th That the King should enter into a more strict Alliance with the Protestant Princes and States for the defence of the Protestant Religion against the Attempts of the Pope and his Adherents And the Propositions made by Lords and Commons Iune 10. 1642. for bringing in Money and Plate to maintain Horse and Arms runs upon this ground first That Religion else will be destroyed and this is particularly recommended to all those that tender their Religion And when the King countermanded the Propositions they re-inforce them by the endearments of Religion And Tuesday 12 Iuly 1642. resolve it upon the Question That an Army be forthwith raised for its defence and preservation Their Declaration of Aug. 8. 1642. grounds its self upon this That the Kings Army was raised for the Oppression of the true Religion And therefore they give this account to the World for a satisfaction to all Men of the Justice of their proceedings and a warning to those who are involved in the same danger with them to let them see the necessity and duty which lies upon them to save themselves their Religion and Country Where they tell us at large and in great passion That Papists ambitious and discontented Clergy-men Delinquents and ill-affected persons of the Nobility and Gentry have conspired together and often attempted the alteration of Religion c. That all was subject to will and power that so mens minds being made poor and base and their Liberties lost and gone they might be ready to let go their Religion whensoever it should be resolved to alter it which was and still is the great design and all else made use of but as instrumentary and subservient to it And then after an horrible harangue about the King and Queens going away the Lord Digby's Letter the Members going to York c. They the Papists Prelates c. come to crown their work and put that in execution which was first in their intention that is the changing of Religion into Popery and Superstition The Scots in answer to a Declaration sent them by their Commissioners at London from the two Houses did Aug. 3. 1642. return another wherein they give God thanks for their former and present desires of a Reformation especially of Religion which is the glory and strength of a Kingdom c. Protest that their hearts were heavy and made sad that what is more dear and precious to them than what is dearest to them in the whole World the Reformation of Religion has moved so slowly To which they add that 't is indeed a work full of difficulties but God is greater than the World and when the supreme Providence giveth opportunity of the accepted time and the day of salvation no other work can prosper in the hands of his Servants if it be not apprehended and with all faithfulness improved This Kirk and Nation when the Lord gave them the calling considered not their own deadness nor staggered at the Promise of an hundred thousand Pound through unbelief but gave glory to God And who knoweth but the Lord hath now some Controversie with England which will not be removed till first and before all the Worship of his Name and the Government of his House be setled according to his own will when this desire shall come it shall be to England after so long desired hopes a tree of life And therefore they proceed to press earnestly for an Uniformity in both Kingdoms but it must be after their own model What hopes say they can there be of Unity in Religion in one Confession of Faith one form of Worship one Catechism till there be first one form of Ecclesiastical Government yea what hope can the Kingdom and Kirk of Scotland have of a durable Peace till Prelacy be pluckt up Root and Branch as a Plant which God hath not planted and from which no better Fruits can be expected than such sowre Grapes as this day set on edge the Kingdom of England In answer to this goodly Declaration the Lords and Commons desire it may be considered that that Party which has now incensed and armed his Majesty against us is the very same which not long since upon the very same design of rooting out the Reformed Religion did endeavour to begin the Tragedy in Scotland c. And having thanked the Assembly of the Church of Scotland for proposing those things which may unite the two Churches and Nations against Popery and all superstitious Sects and Innovations whatsoever do assure that they have thereupon resumed into their Consideration the matters concerning the Reformation of Church-Government and Discipline which say they we have often had in consultation and debate since the beginning of this Parliament and ever made it our chiefest aim though we have been powerfully opposed in the Prosecution and Accomplishment of it And in another Declaration to the Convention of Estates they remonstrate that the honourable Houses have fully
more especially to abet this wild and unaccountable Principle That the Word of God is the onely adequate Rule of instituted Worship which they lay down in their Positive Divinity at which they are incomparably the greatest Doctors in the World as the onely unquestionable Postulatum of all their Discourses yet when they are urged to make it out by Rational Arguments and particular Instances they talk it and talk it but as for proof and evidence they never could nor ever will be brought to produce any other beside the Proleptick certainty of the Maxim it self and therefore I will for ever bar their general Pleas and Pretences drawn from this Principle That the New Testament is the adequate Rule of Instituted Worship to the Church of Christ unless in case of the two Sacraments though as to them too all the outward Circumstances and Postures of Celebration are wholly undetermined in the Scripture till they shall specifie some particular Instances there directed and prescribed under a standing Obligation however it is not to be attended to in our present Controversie when it is as I have proved as certain and complete a Rule of moral Vertue as they can suppose it to be of Instituted Worship and therefore that cannot be any ground of Exception that whilst the former is subject to the latter should be exempt from the disposal of the Civil Jurisdiction So lamentably absurd are the main and darling Principles of these men that 't is not in the Power of Logick or Sophistry to do them any kindness and the more they stir in their Defence the more they expose their Folly § 9. And now having so wofully hurt and prejudiced his own Cause by this rash and indiscreet Attempt upon my Inference in the next place he rushes with a fierce and angry Dilemma upon my Assertion viz. That the Magistrate has Power over the Consciences of men in reference to moral Duties which are the principal Parts of Religion This Power says he is either over moral Vertue as Vertue and as a part of Religion or on some other Account as it relates to humane Society The former he gores through and through and that horn of the Dilemma is above two Pages long and here he has exactly observed the Rules and Customs of Scholastick Dispute that is always prodigal of Confutation where there is no need and niggardly where there is For when he proceeds to the latter which he knows is the only thing I all along asserted he freely grants all I can desire or demand For moral Vertues notwithstanding their peculiar Tendency unto God and Religion are appointed to be Instruments and Ligaments of humane Society also now the Power of the Magistrate in respect of Moral Vertues is in their latter use Very good And the Case is absolutely the same as to all reasons and circumstances of things in matters of Religion for though they as well as moral Vertue chiefly relate to our future Concerns yet have they also a powerful Influence upon our present welfare and if rightly managed are the best and most effectual Instruments of publick Happiness and there lies the very strength and sinew of my Argument that if Magistrates are vested with so much Power over moral Vertues that are the most weighty and essential Parts of Religion as they shall judge it needful to the Peace of Societies and the security of Government how much more reasonable is it that they should be entrusted with the same Power over matters of external Worship that are but its subordinate Instruments and outward Circumstances whenever they are serviceable to the same ends and purposes And if there be any advantage and disparity of Reason 't is apparently on this side for it were an easie Task to prove that moral Vertue is much more necessary to procure the divine Acceptance and Religion much more likely to create publick Disturbance but that is not the subject matter of our present Enquiry 't is enough that both have in some measure a Relation to these different Ends and therefore that both must in some measure be subject to these different Powers You see how shamefully this man is repuls'd by his own Attempts and that there is nothing needful to beat back his Answers but the Arguments themselves against which they are directed And now having spent his main strength in this succesless shock 't is piteous to observe how he faints in his following Assays He inquires whether this Power of the Civil Magistrate over moral Vertue be such as to make that Vertue which was not Vertue before or which was Vice 'T is of the same extent with his Authority over Affairs of Religion as I have already stated it But however to this Impertinent Enquiry he need not have sought far for a pertinent Answer it lay before his eyes when he objected it if he did not write blindfold viz. That in matters both of moral Vertue and divine Worship there are some Rules of Good and Evil that are of an eternal and unchangeable Obligation and these can be never prejudiced or altered by any humane Power But then there are other Rules that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of humane life and in things of this Nature I asserted that the Magistrate has Power to make that a Particular of the divine Law which God has not made so In answer to which he wishes I had declared my self how and wherein So I have viz. in all the peculiar and positive Laws of Nations and gave him Instances in no less matters than of Murther Theft and Incest and produced several particular Cases in which the Civil Power superinduced new obligations upon the Divine Law Which 't is in vain to repeat to one that winks against the Light you know where to find them if you think it needful But is not this a bold man to challenge me with such a scornful Assurance to do what he could not but see I had already performed Some men are confident enough to put out the day in spite of the Sun He adds The divine Law is divine and so is every particular of it and therefore 't is impossible for a man to make new Particulars and yet in the same Breath grants my Assertion as an ordinary and familiar truth if I only intend by making a thing a Particular of the divine Law no more than to make the divine Law require that in particular of a man which it did not require of him before Though that man must have a wild understanding that can mean any thing more or less There is a vast difference is there not between making a new Particular of the Divine Law and making the Divine Law require that in particular which it did not require before But says he these new particulars refer only to the acting and occasion of these things in particular 'T is no matter for that whatever they refer