Lords Day hath met with many and great Enemies among the Ritualists Pag. 〈…〉 I know of no Men in the Church of England that are Enemies to the Lord's Day and if any such there are they never learn'd it from their Mother It sufficeth to my purpose that nothing is constituted or used in our Church to hinder or discountenance the most pious and religious observation of it but so far on the contrary that our publick Worship is appointed to be every where observed on it Neither am I or any other in her Communion I suppose against the most strict and Christian observation of the whole day which is reconcileable to the necessities and infirmities of this life provided always that it be not accounted nor used as a Jewish Sabbath nor observed by way of obedience to the fourth Commandment of the Decalogue The Scripture hath its share of contempt from Ceremonialists Pag 〈…〉 of the truth hereof the Impositions of Rome are a full proof What are the Impositions of the Church of Rome to us Who is bound to justifie all things in use in that Church Let our Author if he be at leisure and so please try his hand with them and see what Defence they will make As to us either let Men write to the purpose or not trouble themselves abuse the ignorant and harden the prejudic'd or tell us particularly which are those Impositions which are Terms of Communion and which are Scriptural and unscriptural or otherwise he and such like who make precarious suppositions and from thence deduce Inferences as much inconsequent must expect to hear that their pretended preciseness is childish and the wresting alledged places of Scripture from their genuine senses to their own purposes is no other than impertinency which is no reflection on the sacred Scripture but on those superstitious and scrupulous Persons who desiring to seem more holy than others raise doubts under pretences of Conscience and to appear more wise and understanding in the Scriptures as if they could see those things there which no Man could ever do before quote them tho improper to prove what they design 2. 〈…〉 4. Mischiefs in promoting an increase of all kind of wickedness What our Author says upon this Head is of a piece with the rest of his Pamphlet magisterial assertions without Proof or Reason precarious suppositions and idle beggings of the Question intermix'd with scurrilous reflections is stuff'd with bitter Railings 〈…〉 These are part of his words The most immoral Men if they did pretend zeal for Ceremonies and were furious against Dissenters did pass for good Christians and true Sons of the Church I might as well viz. with no less truth and reason say that amongst the Dissenters The most immoral Men if they did pretend zeal against Ceremonies and were furious against Conformists did pass for good Christians in their own phrase true Professors and the seriously Godly and in the Dialect arriv'd here the last year sound Protestants and with at least equal pretence subjoin his words 〈…〉 This false measure hath hardened abundance in their evil ways mightily cherish'd and increas'd Vice in the Land If he is not satisfied with this way of answering let him alter his way of writing when he can make good his words I shall easily do mine He adds Conformity to Ceremonies hath been a Cloak that hath covered the most filthy Abominations Had this been true Dissenters would never have been so numerous The changing one word putting Opposition for Conformity and reading it thus Opposition to Ceremonies hath been a Cloak that hath covered the most filthy Abominations will make the Sentence much truer and this Assertion of mine needs no other proof than the allowance of what he insinuates plainly enough in these words A Ceremonial War hath been once fatal to Clergy men 〈…〉 7. 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 2 to be true They assure us That the Rebellion against King Charles the First was raised to oppose Ceremonies and elswhere to the same purpose the words are plain and admit of no other interpretation I therefore challenge him to give the like instance or proof of Conformity to Ceremonies being a Cloak to cover the most filthy Abominations 〈…〉 which if he doth he shall carry his Cause 6. Hindring a world of Good It cannot be proved that Ceremonies in Worship ever did any good 〈◊〉 25. We in the Church of England as I have said have no Ceremonies in use or enjoined in our publick Worship unless kneeling at Prayers and standing at the Creed and Gospel he called Ceremonies and if they be they may do so much good as to testifie our inward humility and devotion in the one our resolution to stand by maintain and defend the other and our Communion with the Primitive and divers Modern Christian Churches in both and this if Men were not contentious though short might be a satisfactory account of two ancient and Catholick and even in themselves decent Postures What good more would our Author have of them They hinder Reformation Love and Communion of Churches 1. They hinder Reformation In the Reformation of the Church of England from the Novelties and corruptions in Doctrines and Practices tending to Idolatry Superstition and Schism from the Primitive and Catholick Church of Christ great care was taken to prevent the Papists still continuing in the Communion of the Church of Rome from accusing us of injustice and perverseness in abolishing any thing which was innocent and decent in it self made venerable by Antiquity and Catholick by the use of the Universal Church or merely because they used it which prudent and Christian moderation as it was designed to justifie our Reformation from the imputation of Schism or unnecessary separation and prevent the giving a scandal to them or throwing a stumbling-block before them which might hinder their coming over to our Communion So it was attended with so good success that it became more generally and universally received through this Kingdom than in those places where it was brought in by force and accompany'd with Tumults and Rebellions as in Scotland Switzerland the Low-Countries c. Insomuch that had not that politick King of Spain Philip II. prevail'd with the Pope by his Bull to prohibit the Roman Catholicks here in Queen Elizabeth's time to frequent our Churches it is with great probability conjectur'd that her happy Reign would so far have out liv'd Popery as that it would no more have been openly professed in this Kingdom And agreeably hereunto I remember a Clergy-man of my Acquaintance who liv'd some years in Ireland affirmed in my hearing that if Kneeling at the Sacrament the use of Godfathers and the Sign of the Cross at Baptism were abolished in Ireland it would breed such a prejudice in the Irish a People very tenacious of their first Principles against the Protestant Religion that they would very hardly be brought over to it and that one of the
from them both And if all other pretences for the continuance of a Schism were removed perhaps this founded in the difference of Opinion would be made a new one by our Dissenters for many of them reproach as they imagine some eminent Divines of the Church of England by imposing on them the name of Arminians Their Doctrines of Solifidianism Imputative Righteousness the Instruments of Justification c. though founded in mistakes and wrong acceptations of words were by many of them imbib'd and receiv'd with that confidence and assurance that they had not patience to hear them explain'd much less doubted of and if there were no Schisms occasioned by them in those times of their Reformation for it would puzzle even a good Ramist to Analyze the several subdivided Sects and their Opinions which that great confusion produc'd Yet how they aspers'd revil'd and persecuted one another upon that account is well known if not Mr. B. can inform any Man who desires it more fully 4. Not only difference of Opinion in matters of Religion but also in the Civil Government is sufficient to make a separation and division in the Church especially if any Authority in Ecclesiastical Affairs be assigned to the supreme Magistrate for that neither the Papists nor Presbyterians will allow him It hath been often observed that Rebellion in the State is usually attended with a Schism in the Church Jeroboam of old introduc'd Idolatry to continue his Revolt lest Union in one Religion and Communion in one Church should restore Loyalty in the Kingdom The Feuds betwixt particular Families arising from the ambitious Emulation of the Prince's favour The Faction between the Covenanters and the Anti-Covenanters in Scotland The Attempts of the Anabaptists in Germany and the Fifth Monarchy-men here in England to omit the most famous Faction between the Guelphes and Gibellines both Parties of the same Religion and other ancient and forreign Instances I shall give you one Example sufficient alone to prove my Assertion The Mountain Conventiclers in Scotland who having under pretence of Conscience separated themselves from the establish'd Episcopal Church and also subdivided themselves from the Presbyterian Dissenters followed select Teachers of their own which being prosecuted according to the Laws of that Country King Charles the Merciful indulged some of them and licensed them to Preach which when he had done and they accepted they who before could by no Authority Laws and Penalties be restrained from flocking to them in multitudes quite deserted them and refused to hear them Preach Such was their pretense of Conscience but indeed Zeal for the Covenant aversion to the King 's Monarchical Authority and Supremacy c. So that if there were not one Rite Ceremony Vestment Gesture c. if it were possible retained or used in our Church nor even the Liturgy it self nor any Constitutions and Canons in force Yet the Old Kirk and Common-wealth Principles beginning to be revived again and the Question being not as some short-sighted Clergy-men imagine about Rites Ceremonies Liturgy Vestments Constitutions and such like small and inconsiderable things but whether a King or Common-wealth if a King from whence shall his Power be derived how limited c There needs no more than that Opinion of the King's Supremacy and that Adherence and Loyalty to Monarchy which the Church of England was formerly renowned for to cause the Dissenters all which are against the King's Supremacy and many of them Men of Common-wealth Principles whose Fingers itch after the Crown and Church-Revenues to separate and continue their Schism from the Church the Quarrel being really and truly more Political than Religious and of this the War against and Execution of King Charles the First the Fanatick-Plot against the Life of King Charles the Second which perhaps they will say was the Action of but some few particular Persons and the Carriage Conversation Writings and Actings of the N. Cs. in general in those times ever since especially this and the last year the transactions lately in Scotland and their precipitate abolishing of the King's Supremacy there are sufficient evidences to any Man who is in his right Senses 5. Different persuasions concerning Ecclesiastical Discipline See◠〈◊〉 Enâ—â—â—â— Noâ—â—â— forâ—â—â— undâ—â—â— K. Câ— c. The Advocate of the Non-conformists as a reason of their Recusancy objects against Lay-Civilian's decreeing Persons to be excommunicated which he calls the exercising the Power of the Keys though this objection is absurdly urged by any Man who asserts the Presbyterian Model by Lay-governing Elders but the removal of this would do little to their satisfaction Neither would what the Author of the Healing Attempt proposes viz. In 〈◊〉 A condescending to settle the Power of Orders and Jurisdiction on Presbyters as well as Bishops according to the Learned Archbishop Usher 's Model c. satisfie them so long as there remain any Persons in our Church superior to them in degree the Power of Ordination and the exercise of Jurisdiction for that is not only inconsistent with their affected Parity but irreconcileable with that Vice gerency which they pretend as well as the Pope to derive from and hold under Christ as the Supreme Head of the Church Thus the Author of the Survey of Discipline tells them pag. 440 441. See 〈◊〉 Doâ—â—ame'â—â— fenceâ— the Sâ—â—â— c. 〈◊〉 6. p. 〈◊〉 They had said that your Discipline is the Kingdom of Christ wherein your Presbyters hold as it were Christ's Sceptre That the Question between the Bishops and You is about no less matter than this whether Jesus Christ shall be King or no c. Or more truly and plainly whether they shall be his Vice-Roys and as Popes over several Parishes Lord it over their Flocks As for Lay-Chancellors tho it is some deviation from the Primitive Times when Bishops with the assistance of their Colleges of Presbyters managed all Affairs yet the Christian Magistrate afterwards committing many Causes to Episcopal Audience Silvanus the Famous Bishop of Troas delegated them with approbation Soc. 〈◊〉 cap. 〈◊〉 to the hearing of Lay-Men However I believe all the Clergy and Lay-Men living in the Communion of the Church of England would be glad the Reverend Fathers of it by a personal execution of the Episcopal Office with their Cathedral College in all cases of Conscience Heresie Schism Crime and Scandal for their own sakes if not for their Church's would remove that Objection As for the Learned Archbishop Usher's Model every body knows it was not his judgment but invented as an expedient to prevent things from coming to the utmost extremities that it doth not settle any Power of Orders as is insinuated upon Presbyters or of Jurisdiction but what they have already and may exercise as to the substance of it by vertue of their Order our Rubricks confirm'd by Statute and our Canon besides that Model excludes the lately invented Lay-Elders and is as little reconcileable to the Congregational way into which most
oppositions of the Civil Magistrate's Authority and exclaiming against his Government their industrious spreading of false and malicious reports to undermine it by possessing others with prejudice against it are all sufficient nay undeniable evidences that their actions are not directed to the preservation of a pure and undefiled Conscience as is pretended for that is void of offence towards God and Man but to the encreasing and upholding a Faction in the State to confront the Government I might add hereunto the practice of our Dissenting Brethren in New-England in their combinations conspiracies against and oppositions to their Governors and the Royal Authority their Penal Laws made against those of the Communion of the Church of England their Sanguinary ones against the Quakers c. their Persecutions of the former and Executions of the latter and their injurious and unchristian dealings with all Men not of their new Church fellowship are such plain instances that their Principles and Practices are such as for which no Conscience or Conviction of judgment can with any shew of reason be pretended or with any appearance of discretion be allowed 4. To alledge the Immorality of the Dissenters Lives in general as an Argument that their Schism was not caused by the conviction of their Consciences since he who lives in the wilful Commission of any one known sin hath forfeited his right to the Plea of Conscience in any other case though a probable Inference yet I am sensible would be to insist upon an harsh and unpleasing Topick to others as well as my self having therefore in the last Paragraph intimated it in relation to their carriage to their Governors in Church and State Here in Scotland and new-New-England from the beginning of the Rebellion against King Charles I. and often since observing only here that the Scripture Histories Reason and Experience have taught us sufficiently that no actions can be more immoral than the conspiring beginning and carrying on of Oppositions Insurrections and Rebellions and those things which precede accompany and follow them which when made under pretence of Religion are thereby yet aggravated by the dishonour done to the Profession of it the scandal given to others and the addition of their own Hypocrisie I shall pursue it no farther but only give you a Character which one who knew them very well by his own woful experience hath left us gathered by his personal observation and confirm'd with a solemn Protestation It is that of King James I. to his Son Prince Charles Take heed therefore My Son of such Puritanes very Pests in the Church and Common-wealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths or Promises bind breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations without any warrant of the word the square of their Conscience I protest before the great God and since I am here as upon my Testament it is no place for me to lie in that ye shall never find with any High-land or Border-Thieves greater ingratitude and more lyes and vile perjuries than with these Fanatick Spirits c. Basil Dor. l. 2. p. 160. This is a Testimony too great to be disputed much more to be denyed it commands belief and needs no confirmation and is large and wants no addition Lastly This Schism themselves being judges is unnecessary for upon supposition that either the Presbyterian or Independent in the difference betwixt the Church of England and them is in the right tho the Institution of our Saviour the Writings and Practices of the Apostles the Universal Government of the whole Catholick Church being against them both it is scarcely to be supposed yet since neither of them can deny a true Christian Church wherein are all things necessary to Salvation to have subsisted under the Episcopal Government unless he will assert that there never was such a true Christian Church in the World till Mr. John Calvin erected one at Geneva Anno Dom. 1541. which I think neither of them will affirm what can be imagined should hinder but that they may both live in Communion with the Church of England which they cannot deny to be such an one It is evident enough by the Writings of the Presbyterians Printed between the Years 1640. and 1660. part of which time the Government was in their own or a Friends hand that they insisted upon this as a sufficient argument against the Independents Separation That they allowed their Churches to be true Christian Churches and therefore they condemned them and all others separating from them as guilty of Schism and declared against a Toleration of them as appearas by their Covenant Letter to the Assembly Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ and others too many to be named So that it is evident that they themselves since they cannot deny our Churches to be true Christian Churches are now such Persons as when they had power in their hands they judged to be inexcusable and not to be tolerated in their Schism because unnecessary and therefore unlawful being made from that which the Separatists themselves confess to be a true Christian Church and consequently that their then judgment condemns their present practice This might be a sufficient argument for us if we had no other to conclude that the prepossessions and prejudices education custom relation interest temporal advantage fear of being accompted fickle unstable c. if conforming and not any conviction of Judgment obligation of Conscience sense of Duty impartially considered or objection against our Liturgy Rites or Ceremonies rightly understood and duely pondered are the true though concealed causes of their renewing and continuing this which when time was at least by parity of reason they themselves judged unnecessary and unlawful Schism Whether it be no reflection on these pretended Teachers to act so contrary to their own Principles and former practises let their Consciences and the World judge In what guilt they involve themselves and their deluded Proselytes for their own temporal gain interest reputation and advantage deserves their most serious Examination In the mean time to all those who desire to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace it must needs be a very sad spectacle to see prejudic'd ignorant unstable and inadvertent Men not considering the relation they stand in to their own proper Pastors the hazards they run of their own Souls by the guilt of Schism they incur and the scandal they lay before others nor the invalid Ordination of these new intruding Teachers 〈◊〉 10.1 their want of Mission or their designing Schism nor the Obligations of their own Consciences to promote and preserve the Peace Order Unity and Communion of the Church or the many and great mischiefs attending an unnecessary and therefore a criminal separation should contemn those spiritual advantages of Church Ordinances celebrated in the most Decent Pious and Apostolick manner and needlesly make a childish and perverse Schism from the
THE CHURCH of ENGLAND AND THE Continuation of the Ceremonies THEREOF Vindicated from the Calumnies of several late PAMPHLETS More particularly that Entitled The Vanity Mischief and Danger of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God Subscribed By P. M. a Minister of the Church of England To which are added Some farther Considerations of a Re-union of the Dissenters with the Church of England Wherein the true Causes of the Schism its Continuance and the means to put an end to it c. are proposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Paul 1 Cor. 14.40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conc. Nicaen 1. Can. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Ignat. Epist ad Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ad Philadelph London Printed for S. Cook and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London 1680. To the READER AMongst those many Factious and Schismatical Pamphlets which in these licentious times have passed the Press I chose after a considerable time's neglect at vacant hours to bestow some considerations on our Author 's because subscrib'd as is pretended by a Minister of the Church of England thinking thereby both to have had an opportunity of vindicating some innocent Ceremony against his ignorant or malicious Misrepresentation of it and that the appearing in our Holy Mother the Church of England's quarrel when beset with Domestick as well as Foreign Enemies forsaken by many of her formerly pretended Friends and risen up against by her undutiful and unnatural Sons howsoever weakly her Cause should be managed would yet be an argument of my sincere and constant duty and affection The Title of his Pamphlet is harsh bitter and malicious and intimates its Author to be either some ill designing Schismatick or blind Zealot bigotted to opposition and actuated as a Tool by a more intriguing Head however it might well be expected that such a bold Front should be followed with great attempts to demonstrate what that so largely intimates viz. That vain mischievous and dangerous Ceremonies are continued prescribed and used in the Divine Worship of the Church of England But upon a perusal his Pamphlet appeared to be a malicious and railing Invective an heap of undecent passionate and virulent expressions a fardle of spightful suggestions founded upon false and precarious Principles He hath taken leave with a supercilious pride to censure and Pythagorically to condemn and that in unbecoming terms all our Ceremonies without ever telling us either what he means by them and in which acceptation of that equivocal Word he desires to be understood or proving all or any of them to be unlawful or undecent And tho he hath no where asserted yet he hath every where presupposed that nothing may be lawfully used in the Worship of God or imposed on the Clergy or Congregation by Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions as matter of decency and order which is not positively and expresly commanded in the Text of the Scriptures which Position is altogether unsound and precarious and sufficiently without other arguments overthrown by that one Maxim That which is not prohibited is conceived to be allowed I always both lik'd and lov'd the Constitution of our English Monarchy as being such a middle betwixt a Despotick and Titular Government as seems to have laid the most probable and stable Foundations of a mutual and lasting happiness of both Prince and People It gives to the King a Prerogative and Supremacy large enough to make him the Father of his Country and to the Subject more liberties privileges and security than any other Monarchy much more inferior Government known to me always enough and unless more loyal in many instances too much and therefore I have with not a little admiration and regret often beheld some in the highest Station whose Interest as well as Duty it hath been to support it connive at encourage nay concur with its Enemies in the pulling of it down And others who live more happily and securely under it than they can under any Aristocracy much more Democracy imagining that they make not figure great enough in the Government of this Monarchy conspire the translation of it into a Common-wealth hoping to be more conspicuous when set at an higher Post as the reward of their intrigues and merits And I think the Church of England as already by Law Establish'd to be the best constituted of any now Visible the like excellent moderation between two extremes may be observed in her Publick Worship avoiding the multitude of needless Observancies and Ceremonies used in the Church of Rome inclining to Superstition and the rustical undecencies and clownish disorders introduced by some pretended Reformers tending no less to confusions and profaneness And tho I will not assert that our present Liturgy cannot admit of a greater accuracy in some Collects and Offices yet I believe it to be now the most perfect extant that there is nothing in it but what any Man how pious and conscientious soever if humble peaceable and duly inform'd without scruple may comply with and joyn in and that the making any considerable alterations in it would lay a new Stumbling-block before the Papists and make them more averse from coming over to our Church and scandalize many of our own Communion by our levity needless and frequent changing and modelling even our Religious Worship and Divine Offices to the humour of designing Persons and a State-Cabal and that all the alterations that may or can be made in it and our Constitutions both will never answer their purpose viz. effect a Comprehension and Re-union of the Dissenters with our Church for they as long as any thing remains will never want a pretence for their Separation And to an unconcern'd Spectator it cannot but appear strange and unaccomptable to see some Persons of the highest Orders and Degrees in the Church so zealous and impatient to make such alterations in its Liturgy Customs and Legal Establishments as must in all reason precipitate the subversion of it and to sacrifice its Honour Rites and Constitutions to the Pride of a few designing Persons so divided among themselves that they could never agree in any thing but in a joint enmity and opposition to the Government of the Church and State who herein aim not so much at an Union of themselves with us as at the destruction of our Ancient Hierarchy to make way to establish their novel Discipline this experience might have taught us But if the Persons concern'd will not be caution'd neither by the avowed Principles of their Adversaries nor by their Practices especially for this last half Century it will be easie without the trouble of erecting a Scheme to predict that when the Supreme Order of our Church-men shall be acknowledged useless by a publick concession of an equality of degrees and an identity of that Order with the hitherto and that truly supposed inferior then their Superiorities Privileges and Revenues will in a very little time expose them so prevalent a temptation to the Pride
of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God Humbly proposed to the Present Convocation c. THat An English-man never knows when he is well is a Proverb which we use at home and wherewith we are reproach'd abroad and that too justly to be denyed applicable both to single Persons and conjunct Societies the tendency of Affairs in this Nation since the Year 1640. beyond all possibility of contradiction doth evince The Subjects of this Kingdom through the Grants of former Kings and by virtue of the good Laws by them enacted and made were better secured in their Rights Properties and Persons than any other Nation of the Universe Nor were they less happy as Christians living in the bosom of a Church whose Faith was Catholick Government Apostolical whose Publick Liturgy Constitutions and Canons in perfection excell'd those of any of the Reformed or any other then Visible Church whose Clergy were esteem'd the wonder of the World Hence the envy of the Roman and the admiration of the Reformed Churches Such was then the condition of the English Church and State that it was hard to imagine what could be thought wanting to compleat their happiness unless perhaps you will say their being sensible of it But not knowing when they were well they by God's just permission actuated by the Romish Emissaries who took advantage of the ambition and covetous Inclinations of some and of the discontented and restless Spirits of others involv'd the Nation in a most odious and unnatural Rebellion the Violences Cruelties and Murthers which accompany'd and the Oppressions Usurpations Tyrannies Plunderings and Miseries which follow'd it are too many to be numbred too woful to be rehearsed and such as any Man in his right Wits would for ever be caution'd by to avoid as the worst of evils any actions means or methods whereby the like may again be brought upon us And yet as if Men were led by destiny or guided by those ludicrous Spirits which our Author supposes play little tricks in disturb'd houses and others learned in those matters think set Men together by the ears as they do Cocks and Dogs for their own diversion they seem industriously to lay the Foundations of future troubles to return to 1640. and to be willing to react the same Tragedy and that before the Epilogue is ended and the Actors all gone off the Stage Hither tend most of our new Scriblers and their Pamphlets some devesting the King of all Inherent Sovereign Authority Supremacy and Prerogative c. Others representing our Monarchs of the last Race as the most Monstrous and Wicked Villains that ever liv'd and under the pretence of Secrets relating things not only incredible in themselves but if supposed yet impossible to be known to any but Pimps and Persons if any such there be of a more odious Character thereby endeavouring to possess the People with an ill opinion of the Persons of Kings in order to prepare them for the dissolution of the Monarchy Essays tending to the same purpose have been also made against the Church designing Men having unjustly slander'd her Divines as inclined to Popery and popishly affected till in King James's time to their no less glory than hazard they appeared the greatest if not the only Champions in the Cause of our Religion and the Laws and thereby made all future calumnies of that sort appear too unjust and malicious to be used How is it to be wished that our Enemies malice could have had an end But alass though they thus were forc'd to change the Object yet they have retained the Vice Nothing will please them they will never be quiet now our Rites and Ceremonies must be illegitimated our Liturgy circumcised our Subscriptions Constitutions and Canons all abolished to gratifie those who if all these things were done would be as little satisfy'd as now they are Our Author their Adversary betrays too much Passion before the things themselves and their consequences are well considered he is all upon the fret and out of all patience to be pulling down the whole Ancient and therefore venerable the well compact and firm Fabrick of the Church of England which having been of full proof against all the assaults of our Foreign Roman Foes must now be undermined by her domestick Enemies and what is yet more intolerable her own pretended Friends by an easie surrender of her outworks make her main strength less tenable and precipitate her ruin Our Author like a Man full of design or big with some conceit of his own or News heard from others breaks out and with abundance of concern and passion thus vents himself It is the wonder and grief of all good English Protestants Pag◠〈…〉 that such an unaccountable frenzie 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 If by all good English Protestants he means the Men of the Church of England as by Law Established to whom that Name borrowed from the Lutherans who at Spire in the Year 1529. protested against the Corruptions and Usurpations of the Church of Rome whose Communion they then forsook more properly than to any other People in England belongs both because they are an Establish'd and Visible Church and because all Sectaries whatsoever among us hold more in common with the Papists than they do then his assertion is too general to be true Many and perhaps the most and wisest admire what an unaccountable frenzie should hurry some hot Church-Men amongst us with a blind Zeal against that Pious Good and above all extant the most Perfect Liturgy to which and all things therein contained and prescribed they have all once at the least declared as they then pretended their unfeigned assent and consent or against that Government in Church which as far as we can understand by the Scriptures was Instituted by our Saviour which the Ancients assure us was propagated together with the Christian Faith by the Apostles and their Successors and which the continual Succession of the Catholick Church of Christ for now more than 1600 Years hath delivered to us and those wholsome Constitutions which the Wisdom and Experience of the Learned and Grave Fathers of our own Church relation being had to those of elder times also have produced and the Civil Laws of the Land confirmed unto us As for His Majesties design in giving a Commission to some of our Reverend Fathers and Divines to prepare things for Peace and calling of a Convocation c. Who ever blamed it though as to the Method it must be supposed that the unseasonable precipitancy and preposterous Zeal of some in the Late House of Commons to gratifie their dissenting Friends by an Act of Toleration hath prevented even those few good Fruits which they who are acquainted with that sort of People expected from it but of this afterwards I shall here only add that this would be too
choose Men to sit in Convocation c. The possibility of it if the King should be so ill advised as to give consent to it I shall not much dispute remembring that a Parliament in King Henry the Eighth's Reign surnamed the Almighty-Parliament and some since have de facto done such strange things in annulling transferring Titles Rights Claims Possessions and Inheritances c. without regard to Superiour Laws as argue Infallibility and Arbitrary Power except in the Persons of Popes and Kings to be neither absurd nor disallowable I shall only take leave to say that the Clergy are as competent Judges of the Parliament-men as the Knights and Burgesses of the Convocation-men that whatever alterations they may make de facto in our Liturgy or Ceremonies without the Clergy yet it is absolutely impossible to make an Union without them I need not add that such alterations would be a taking away that Liberty of Conscience from the establish'd Church which is given to all Dissenters for it is to be supposed that our Parliament-men if not infallible are yet wiser than at the suggestion of this Furioso to attempt the removing the ancient Land-marks and constitutions of the Nations Government such violent Convulsions of the Monarchy must needs both presage and produce a dissolution of it All the Art and Power in the World cannot make trifles in the Worship of God seem matters of importance to them that rellish heavenly things 〈…〉 6. The conformable Clergy and Laity of the Church of England knowing many things to be lawful and innocent and judged by our Superiours to tend to Order Decency and Devotion use them as such and cannot so properly be said to make them seem matters of importance as they who pretend Conscience for disobedience in the use of things no where prohibited and therefore indifferent and disturb all peace and Unity in the Church to introduce their own confusions and divisions 〈…〉 7. What Trumpery are Habits various Gestures and Postures to a Man that is swallowed up in the contemplation of the infinite Majesty of the Glorious God This Man is too wise as being wise above what is written A modest and well-bred Man would never have used such rude and vilifying terms of such things as the Almighty God was once pleased to appoint and command in his own Worship If any say those sacerdotal Habiliments and Levitical Impositions are not obligatory to us Christians I say no more are the Judicial Laws given by Moses and yet if any Man shall therefore say they are unjust absurd foolish or ridiculous I think God the Supreme Legislator is reflected on and concern'd in his Honour and the person so saying must be supposed immoral bold and prophane If our Author should be censured by this Paragraph he would be thought not only a Phanatique but an Enthusiast Would this contemplative Politico have the Priest officiating lose his Body as well as his Mind and Wits for otherwise he must of necessity use such Trumpery as Habits Gestures and Postures and if they in use are lawful as our Author saying nothing to the contrary must in all reason be supposed to allow why not those as well as others especially since they are few Grave Decent Ancient Naturalized and by Law established Innovations are always hurtful and sometimes dangerous always tend towards and sometimes precipitate dissolution 3. It is unreasonable to continue Ceremonies Ibid. After all the Wisdom and Power of Imposers can do the judgments of Men will differ And I can say with equal truth and reason After all that Abolishers can do Pag. 〈…〉 the judgments of Men will differ He proceeds It is as possible to make their Hair all of one colour their Bodies of the same proportion their Faces all alike as their Judgments to be the same in Rites and Ceremonies To which I may add or in any thing else Must nothing therefore be continued If every thing must be abolished concerning which Men have different Opinions not only Rites and Ceremonies but our Creeds and Sacraments nay our Houses and our Bibles which gave occasion to great diversities of Opinions and some Heresies must be abolished and burnt not only University Habits Notes of Degrees and Church Vestments but all manner of Clothes must be left off and if our Author's inference were pursued home it would abolish his own dear Corps As for that Rule Ibid. Nothing but what is necessary should be imposed as terms of Communion to understand it aright we must first enumerate those things which are enjoined the Members of the Church of England and they are That they should duly frequent their Parish-Church be present at and join in the Publick Prayers and Offices of the Church with reverence and attention hear the Church Homilies or other Sermons read or preach'd and receive the Holy Communion at the least thrice in a Year That they should bring their Children to the Font to be baptized to the Church to be Catechized and to the Bishop to be Confirm'd I know nothing else required of any person as necessary to their holding Lay-communion with it and these I think to be both few and such as are generally necessary to Salvation What is meant by Imposition of things as Terms of Communion when spoken if properly it may be so of persons here born and bred is not so easily understood It is true the Church assumes as her part a maternal care to instruct and educate her Children in her Bosom Whereas that Expression Imposition of things as Terms of Communion seems to relate properly either to Foreiners or Converts presupposing them Professors of some other Religion and She treating with them and offering them conditions of admittance to her Communion and this if such Foreiners are already received into the Catholick Church by Baptism with us is done by vertue of the Communion of Saints upon their freely uniting themselves with the Congregation of that Parish where they inhabit joying therewith in its Publick Worship and other Churches Offices and if duly qualified their participating of the Sacraments But if a person yet unbaptized and consequently no Christian being made a Convert desires to to be received into the Communion of this Church it is requisite that he make profession of the Christian Faith contained in the Apostles Creed desire and receive Baptism What else can be understood by Imposing Terms of Communion The Prescriptions Rules and Constitutions of the Church of England are all directed to those already in her Communion and suppose all Persons born in this Kingdom to be by Baptism made so But if by it is meant that nothing may be prescribed in a Church to be observed by the Members of it which is not necessary to Salvation I cannot believe it to be in that sense true for some things may be not only lawfully but also laudably used and established in a constituted Church which are not absolutely necessary to Salvation A Man
Mischiefs to the Church 2. To the State 3. To Souls 4. To Piety 5. Mischiefs in promoting a mighty increase of Prophaneness and all kind of wickedness 6. Hindring a world of good 1. Pag. 11. Mischiefs to the Church Zeal for Mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of Mind makes them such triflers in Religion that they disregard the great Interests of God and his Church in the World They are not sensible of the desolations of Gods Churches in France Orange Piedmont the Palatinate Ireland c. It might be answer enough for me to say that all this is nothing to the purpose both because the Persecutions and Massacres in these several places were not made upon the account of external Ceremonies but partly upon a secular account and partly upon a religious where then Communion and Doctrines of the Church and not Ceremonies were controverted and because the Church of England doth not impose Ceremonies or Mens devices upon any under penalty of Persecution But I add that these instances disprove what they are brought to confirm for the desolations of God's Churches in France Piedmont c. are so far from proving that Zeal for mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of mind and makes them such triflers in Religion c. That they evince nothing or else the quite contrary that such as raise Persecutions upon the account of Religion are not Men of light Minds or Triflers in it or disregard the Interests of God and his Church though perhaps they prosecute them the wrong way and by undue Mothods for it is evident they if without sinister design pursue what they think to be God's and his Church's Interest more than their own The Kings of Spain weakened their Kingdoms and exhausted their Treasures by Banishing the Moors and erecting the Inquisition and the French King cannot be supposed to gain by the Flight of his Subjects their ceasing to trade and withdrawing their effects neither was it trifling they fled from Do you Sir who in the behalf of the Dissenters clamorous enough without assistance with open jaws set up the Cry of Persecution here in England and call the French King the Duke of Savoy their Armies Officers and Dragoons Triflers What the Church of England-men which this Pamphleteer abusively calls Zealots for these things did in reference to a Popish Successor was agreeable to their Principles both of Loyalty and Honesty They remembred that tho to do evil that good may ensue be a Doctrine received in the Church of Rome yet it is not so in the Church of England They well knew that an Act for Exclusion notwithstanding any Infallibility or Omnipotency a Parliament can pretend to would be still in it self unjust as contrary to the Laws of God and nature and to the Rules of Equity and common Reason void in it self as being contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Land and the very Constitutions of the Monarchy and mischievous in its Events as that which would most certainly have involved these three Kingdoms in a most Bloody Civil War and perhaps have brought an Invasion from abroad in upon us to boot But behold the tender Conscience of our Dissenters they cry out of Persecution upon the Levying a small pecuniary mulct for the frequenting an unnecessary and seditious Conventicle in pursuance of divers Laws made by their own Representatives but would exclude an Hereditary Prince from his undoubted Right and Inheritance by a Law they were no ways authorized to make and involve three Nations at the least in a Bloody War and all the miseries attending it that so they might again swallow up the Crown Lands to maintain the Grandeur of their Hogan-Mogan-Ships in a new Common-Wealth and all this under pretence of the Preservation of the Laws Liberties and the Protestant Religion the name of which it is probable will grow as odious to after Ages as that of Popery is to us by reason of such who shroud all their ill designs and crimes under that usurped affected and abused Notion The Scripture is our only guide of Unity 〈◊〉 Uniformity is deformity and confusion when Men appoint other terms of Ministerial Service and Church-Communion than are prescribed in Gods Word If the Scripture is the only guide of Unity let our Author tell me why his Clients the Presbyterians Independents Quakers c. are not guided into Unity by it since they all have it and pretend to follow it and yet are far enough from Unity The Scripture it is true prescribes and commands Unity but never actually effected it without the interposition of Ecclesiastical Authority as in the Primitive Church Ecclesiastical and Civil as in the Reformation of our Church or Civil as in Spain by the Inquisition in France by Edicts c. That Uniformity is or can be deformity and confusion I shall think to be a contradiction till our Author shews how it can be reconciled Those terms of Communion which he intimates to be prescribed in Gods Word he would do well to shew us or tell us where we may find them if he can They would do more if clearly discovered and demonstrated towards the Union of our differences than a Thousand such railing Pamphlets and the Intrigues and Politick Desings contrived by Male-contents and as hotly pursued by such Tools as he for the involving us into the same miseries that followed upon the last Rebellion 2. 〈◊〉 3. Mischiefs to the State Zeal for Ceremonies begets in Men a contempt of Publick Rights and Boundaries This is a very strange discovery which our Author hath made but it is so incredible that he could not in reason have supposed that we should take it merely upon his Word Therefore he would have done well to have inform'd us farther how a Zeal for Ceremonies begets a contempt of Publick Rights whether by an Univocal or Equivocal Generation If any Man should argue thus This Man is zealous for Ceremonies therefore he contemns Publick Rights and Boundaries would not all Men wonder at the Inference The Consequence will better follow on the contrary side thus This Man disturbs the Peace and Order of the Church and makes no conscience of breaking the Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions and therefore it is probable that out of the same Principle of disobedience and humour of opposition he will contemn Publick Rights and Boundaries and all obligations of the Conscience to obedience set by the Civil Law also But our Author proceeds When they dote so much upon vanities in Worship as to inslave their Consciences and to despise their Christian liberty it is no wonder if they sell at any rate their own and others Civil Rights and Privileges Surely this is spoken of the Inhabitants of the Moon or some Utopian Countries for most Men here have as little Zeal and as much contempt or at least neglect of the daily Service of the Church as our Author supposes them to have of the Publick Rights and Boundaries
To joyn in the Publick Worship of the Establish'd Church though it be supposed there are Ceremonies and what he hath no less maliciously than falsly insinuated vanities in it would not be to despise our Christian liberty but to make use of it Whereas he who scruples it either is weak and thinks he hath no liberty in that case or which is worse is sullen and will not use it But suppose Men despise their Christian Liberty though I understand not how the Members of the Church of England can be said to do so will they sell therefore their Civil Rights and Privileges at any Rate I wonder our Author is not ashamed of such gross non sequitur's As for any indirect means which may be supposed to have been used in Juries Elections Corporations c. I think the Dissenters both in modesty and justice ought to have held their tongues as having by far exceeded the Conformists for as far as I could ever see hear read observe or learn they were much more diligent and industrious used more indirect courses and underwent greater fatigues to uphold and carry on a Faction against the Government and Laws than these some whereof being not so designing they usually drew over to their Party were either to maintain the Right or countermine their attempts The best course which can be taken to recover God's blessing the Church's Union and the Kingdom 's Peace Riches Wealth Strength and Reputation is not the Parliaments or rather some few turbulent Spirits strugling as our Author says with the Prince nor the maintaining an unquiet and never to be satisfied Faction to confront the Government or extort Privileges or Liberties from the King by the diminution of his Prerogative the glorying in the Doctrin of Resistance under the pretence of Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Laws or the encouraging of Dissenters to make the Schism greater for these do but make one Party jealous of another and neglect the Publick Good to oppose each other but a true practical Piety towards God a Loyalty and quiet Subjection to the Prince and a permission of him to manage his own Province a Charity and mutual Love and Unity without interessing our selves in much less hating and separating from one another for our respective private Opinions and an industrious following every one his own lawful Vocation and Employment 3. Mischief to Souls Pag. 1◠For trifles there hath been exercised a mad Tyranny over Mens faculties This is that which cannot be made good for all Men have and since the times of Popery every Man had liberty by the Laws of England to be of any Judgment or Opinion he should think most probable and freedom for his faculties and the exercise of them where they could claim any right to do so in their own Houses and Families nor if a Friend Stranger Traveller or a Neighbor or two happened to be present was there any danger or penalty thereby incurr'd But that every Man under pretence of Conscience should therefore have liberty for all his outward actions and be allowed for his own private advantage to make publick Harangues to disturb the Peace and seduce his Neighbors by the propagation of a Schism dangerous to both Church and State is that which doth not follow even the Dissenters themselves when they had power in their Hands being Judges as appears by their carriage to the Clergy of the Church of England in the late times That a pretence of Conscience where nothing evidently sinful in it self is positively enjoyned will not justifie a Man in Schism or exempt him from Penal Laws as having a Right by the Law of Nature to be tolerated therein I shall imagine my self to have proved till I see farther The little things imposed are a means of depriving the Church of the Service of many useful Ministers that are apt to teach 〈◊〉 16. and would be glad to give the Bread of Life to those Souls that are by the Drones left in the broad way to destruction The Church of England wants not Ministers that are apt to teach but in some places Persons that will be taught and in others maintenance for the Teachers No place where there is a competent visible subsistence needs to want a Preacher Our Universities can supply another Kigndom In the mean time this needs none of their assistance if the Usurping Ministers and Encroaching Pastors would return the straying Sheep home to their own rightful Pastors and proper Folds whence designedly they have drawn them for their own advantage they would thereby do better Service to God his Church the Kingdom their own and the seduced and deluded Mens Souls than possibly they can any other way If any are Drones let them be amended or removed they may well be spared Ibid. Christ commands his Ministers to Preach and qualifies them for that Service Christ commands none to Preach but those which he calls by his Church and he who intrudes into the Sacred Office without an Ordinary Mission unless he demonstrates by Miracles an extraordinary one can shew no tolerable reason why he should not be esteemed and used as either an Euthusiast or Impostor neither can any qualifications though exceeding those of other Men which yet never have been found in them be reasonably laid in the balance with the Peace Order and Unity of the Church and the Love and Charity of the Neighborhood Our Author says in Page 17th The Ruin of Souls may be for want of the Labours of those able Ministers whom we exclude for toys I know none are excluded but such who exclude themselves and the more shame for them if they will be so humoursome and pettish as to shut out themselves because they cannot in every thing have their Wills and the more trivial the things objected are the more evident it is that somewhat else besides and more than Conscience which is pretended is the true cause of their Non Conformity But yet I can see no such great danger of the ruin of Souls more than now there is if they were as silent as they are clamorous Salvation in another sense than that in which it is usually taken being the common end of at least a great part of that noise and disturbance which is made by that Party and I heartily wish that their Hearers laying aside that blind zeal out-side Piety and unreasonable opposition to the Government both of Church and State in which they please themselves and whereby they are distinguish'd from other Men they would by the regular Piety Loyalty Peace Humility Obedience and Charity of their Lives convince the World of the excellency and sincerity of their Teachers 〈◊〉 18. 4. Mischiefs to Piety The most Learned Divines and the Wisest States-men in the World are but bunglers when they take upon them to add unto Gods Worship what he hath not appointed If our Author either could or would tell us what Worship God hath particularly appointed
it were easie to determine what hath been added thereunto in the mean time it may be sufficient to deny the charge and let him prove it if he can Mankind hath for many Ages been possessed and tormented with a furious spirit the Devil of Imposition it will never be well till this Spirit is cast out If he had with a little alteration said thus This Church hath for this last Age been tormented with a furious Spirit the Devil of Opposition c. It had been far more truly and properly spoken both because the Spirit of the Opposers hath been far more furious than that of the Imposers and also because Opposition is more properly than Imposition attributed to the Devil who the Apostle tells us worketh in the Children of disobedience 〈…〉 Piety may now as well live and flourish without our Ceremonies as it did mount without them above Idolatry and conquered the World If our Author means that there are more Ceremonies now imposed in the Church of England than were in use in the Christian Churches in the time of Constantine the Great by whose Profession of Christianity and kindness to the Christians it signally conquered and abolished Pagan Idolatry out of the Empire he is very much mistaken let him if he please compare them at his own leisure and he will find it so Ceremonies in Worship corrupt Peoples minds with vanity make them light and trifling in the weighty concerns of God and their Souls God Almighty hath plainly enough determin'd the contrary by his Institution of so many in his own Publick Worship I have already said that there are no Ceremonies enjoyned to be observed by the Congregation in the Publick Worship of God in the Church of England unless he will call kneeling and standing which are only gestures of the Body so but if he will yet it cannot be said of them that they corrupt People's minds with vanity and make them light and trifling in the weighty concerns of their Souls Such decent postures have by the common Sentiments of the Christians in all Ages been observed not only as conducing to Order and Uniformity but also as tending to promote zeal and devotion and are certianly in themselves as decent as having the Head uncovered which the Apostle so largely insists on in 1 Cor. 11. Nor can our Author shew the least shadow of reason why those Ancient and Catholick Gestures should corrupt People's minds with vanity or make them light and trifling in the weighty concerns of God and their Souls or on the other Side why the uncouth Gestures of leaning upon a Seat lolling upon their Elbows or sitting upon their Br s should encrease Devotion or not rather corrupt Peoples minds with an undecent slothfulness and an unchristian clownishness in the presence of God and his Holy Angels unmeet for the place and employment Many think they have done much if they have exactly conformed to Rites and Ceremonies No Man in the Communion of the Church of England can reasonably think so both because there are no Rites and Ceremonies prescribed to be observed by the Congregation and because those very few retained in all our Church-Offices joyntly taken are declared to have no intrinsick Holiness but to be in themselves things indifferent and no otherwise enjoyned But it is in every Man's observation that a great part of the Fanatick fury by themselves mistaken for a Godly Zeal is spent in loud boistrous and malicious invectives against innocent Habits Gestures and the Observation of Anniversaries c. as if their malice and ill words were what they will not allow the Papists good works to be viz. meritorious nay farther that which the Holy Sisters esteem more precious much of the Pulpit sweat is wasted in impertinent railings by way of useful digressions when arrived at an end of sense and reason against Episcopacy the supposed Superstitions and Ceremonies of the Church of England and the wickedness and profaneness of all other Men but their own sweet selves Hence their pride and affectation prejudice and malice their censoriousness and moroseness of humour their fourness and bitterness of Spirit c. All the rest of this Paragraph seems more applicable to the Church of Rome which is overgrown with Ceremonies and Representations of Spiritual Mysteries by sensible Objects than to the Church of England in whose Publick Worship and Administration of the Sacraments a Man cannot speak of Sacraments in the Plural Number Piety hath been scorned vilified and persecuted under the notion of Puritanism If the Name of Puritans was assumed by themselves as pretending like their Predecessors the Pharisees and Novatian Hereticks to be more Pure and Holy than others there is no reason they should be dissatisfied with the use of it by others Yet that Piety hath been scorned c. perhaps will not be so easily proved as said for real Piety Honesty Justice and Charity have the inward and tacit approbation of all Men and the outward applause of all except only some few ill bred envious and designing Persons who yet can neither condemn nor scorn it But the affectation of a canting dialect a superstitious placing of Religion in the use of indifferent things and an outside and formal preciseness and an abundance of Zeal in and about trifles used by many when like the Painted Sepulchres of the Pharisees they are full of secret corruptions the discovery of their seeming Sanctity to be the most odious wickedness under the Vizor of Hypocrisie exposes them to the scorn and contempt of the World like him who pretended he could not endure to have a Bishop's hand laid on his Head by way of Ordination but besides his other crimes could embrue his Hands in an Archbishops Blood by a revengful Murther or him who under pretence of Conscience was a Schismatick from that Church to which the use of Ceremonies could not be objected and an active Rebel against his Sovereign and yet lived in Fornications and Adulteries and was guilty of Incests and Bestialities not that all called Puritans and Schismaticks have been guilty of such gross sins but that when such Mens seeming Religious Zeal and the concealment under it hath been discovered and that though outwardly they strain at Gnats yet secretly can swallow Camels then not true Piety but the Hypocritical pretender to it is scorn'd and vilify'd The next Paragraph of our Author 's own endicting being the first in page 20th is an extravagant furious accusation of I know not whom upon I know not what account if his passion be over and he be yet come to himself and left Master of any modesty or reason let him look it over I know not what to say to such scurrilous railing and lying The Removal of Ceremonies will take away the Vizor with which Formalists Pag 〈…〉 Hypocrites Wicked and Prophane Men do cover themselves Suppose kneeling at Prayers and standing up at the Creed and Gospel to be Ceremonies they are the only Ceremonies
I who make no pretensions that way shall not though perhaps I might with a greater probability contradict him but rather wish that he and many others whose ambition it hath been to be thought wiser than more modest Men had been more sparing both in the interpretations of Prophecies in such a manner and in uttering their own Imaginations and Whimsies in such terms as have encouraged some unjudicious and credulous Persons by the like phanciful application of the fulfilling of them to themselves to attempt strange things to the disturbance of our Church's and the Kingdoms Peace the Emotions of the Anabaptists in Germany long since and the Fifth-Monarchy-men in England in the time of King Charles the Second are such evident instances hereof that I need name no more I could be heartily glad that that expression of his to them 〈◊〉 31. It depends much on your pious Counsels to calm the storms that rage in some Men's minds to heal our breaches c. were true tho for a far better more generous and Christian end than that which he adds To make us a terrour to our Enemies and wish that our Author to prove it would give us an instance of the Efficacy of their pious Counsels by the future calmness of the storm that so lately rages in his own Mind and in his Disciples 5. 〈◊〉 35. The danger that threatens us in the continuance of Ceremonies in the Worship of God We are threatened with a double danger present and future 1. Our present danger this may be set forth in three Particulars 1. The continuance of these things will bring upon us the contempt and hatred of the People It was well enough because plainly and honestly confess'd and the motive allow'd sufficient for the writing of a Play which the Comedian acknowledges in his Prologue Poeta cum primùm animum ad scribendum appulit Id sibi negotî credidit solùm dari Populo ut placerent quas fecisset fabulas But it ill becomes a Divine to plead for any alterations in the worship of God by arguments drawn from worldly Interests and Advantages even the favour of a Prince much less of a Populace one single Reason deduced from the Peace and Union of the Church were it to be this way attained as it never will after the greatest condescensions alterations and abolitions our Author or a more furious Phanatick if any such there be can propose in the balances of the Sanctuary which only are to be used by the Church would infinitely outweigh all such considerations And I may add that the continuance of these things is so far from the bringing upon us the hatred and contempt of the People that on the contrary the abolishing of them would most certainly and upon far juster grounds do it as being Persons of levity and inconstancy in our religious Worship and making it truckle to our worldly Interests and designs men that have not hitherto been in earnest with God or the World who prostitute their Consciences to the pleasure of others and are contented for advancement to make themselves ridiculous by giving the Lye to all their publick Professions Declarations Subscriptions Defences Vindications and use of our Church-Customs and Constitutions The Dissenters doubt of the lawfulness of our terms of Communion and therefore cannot yield to us 〈…〉 but we may with ease and innocence condescend to them in quitting Impositions not appointed by God What our Author means by terms of Communion and Impositions not appointed by God who can tell he having no where told us but while he intimates the former to be unlawful and the latter to be so innocently easily and advantageously parted with he doth but beg the Question If it were enough to say the Dissenters doubt of the lawfulness of our Church Customs and Constitutions and therefore cannot yield to us by equal reason it may be sufficient to return we doubt of the lawfulness of parting with them and therefore cannot yield to them However when our Author and his Clients the Dissenters shall shew unto us what and which are by us made terms of Communion and are unlawful as also which are the Impositions that are and are not appointed by God and when he and they are come to an agreement amongst themselves and give us security to be all concluded by it then I dare engage the Church of England will joyn with them and do what they would have done in the mean time it is not rational to talk of an Union since no Man knows what will please them The Bishop of Salisbury's Exhortation is very good but I think it should more properly have been directed to the Dissenters for it is in their Power only to heal the wounds and close the Schisms they have to say no worse unnecessarily made by their own voluntary separation from us but in ours it is not tho we should give away our Ceremonies our Liturgy our Churches our Consciences and our Lives Our Brethren have according to the Act of Indulgence subscribed our Doctrine 〈…〉 and are thereby incorporated into the Church of England Except I see the Subscriptions of our Author's Brethren or at the least receive it from far better Testimony than his Pamphlet I shall not believe that they have subscribed the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England for I never remember such an instance of their Obedience to Authority and it is difficult to leave an old ill custom but if it be true then they have thereby approved of our Ordinations Creeds and consequentially of our Ceremonies also yet are they not thereby incorporated into the Church of England for incorporation into a Church doth not depend upon believing or testifying that belief by subscription of some few Principles in Religion which perhaps may so be elected and composed that Papists Lutherans Calvinists Arminians Independents c. which hold not mutual communion amongst themselves may subscribe them but in being baptized in it as to Infants and in living in actual Communion in the Word Sacraments Prayers and other Publick Offices with it as to the adult and faithful Suppose they did all subscribe the whole 39 Articles and agree with us in the substantials of our Religion 1 〈◊〉 3 〈◊〉 which are only worth contending for is it not a plain Argument of their pride carnality and disobedience that they will make a Schism and separate from our Communion upon the account of order and decency and the use of such things as they themselves cannot say are unlawful Who and what Party used to obstruct Affairs in Parliament he needs no Information who can remember the Reign of King Charles II. But to charge some Clergy-men and Priest ridden Gentlemen with the obstructing the Affairs of Parliament hindering the Relief of Derry c. can be looked upon nothing less than a malicious slander till he names the Men and proves the thing if he can do either or both of them let him
concurr'd to the granting of them a Parliamentary Indulgence neither did her kindness end there but she entertained thoughts of making farther attempts to re-unite them to her Communion till their own carriage and ill returns made her pursue those Methods more coldly which by the outward Symptoms appear already to be without any hopes of the design'd success Therefore Pa◠〈…〉 as to the many Dissenters living in the confines of our Church the bringing them back to her Communion and thereby the Restauration of a mutual tranquillity peace and charity among all her Members and the recalling of that Christian Love which seems now to have forsaken us as well as the rest of Europe would be the greatest and most valuable blessing both to our Church and State can be attained on this side Heaven and he doth not deserve to be reckon'd in the number of good Christians who would not part with all his temporal enjoyments or even his Life it self were it at his own disposal to purchase it God forbid that any Clergy-men of the Church of England should hold any Rites or Ceremonies the two Sacraments often so called only excepted Church-Constitutions Canons Customs Benefices or Preferments whatsoever so dear unto them but that they would most gladly Sacrifice any or all of them to the Peace and Unity of the Church were it thereby attainable this Peace and Union are that which every one wishes and desires though few find solid ground whereon to fix their hopes while we mistake the means and methods to obtain them The Dissenters being unwilling to own the real Motives of their Separation from our Church have for a pretence cavell'd and excepted against some few Passages in our Liturgy some of our legal Constitutions and Establishments our Subscriptions Ceremonies Church Customs c. Wherefore several have thought that the alteration and removal of them would effect a Re-union but that this is at the best but a great mistake I shall think my self to have sufficiently proved when I have produced such Reasons as shall be effectual for the proving the following Position viz. Any alterations how many or great soever that can be made in our present Liturgy the utter abolishing all the Ceremonies prescribed or used in our Publick Worship and any alterationâ— that can be made in our Book of Constitutions and Canons or all these together should they be accomplished would never heal the Schisms that are amongst us and reâ—unite the Dissenters to the Church of England For 1. If the Liturgy Ceremonies and Constitutions in use in the Church of England were the causes of these Schisms and Separations then where these are not in use there would be no Schisms but we see the contrary In the United Provinces what a great and formal Schism did the Calvinists make upon the account of Five disputable Articles neither way accounted Heresie and what a severe Persecution did they raise against the Remonstrants which they could neither confute nor convince of error because they would not say as they would have them In Scotland the Church there by Law Established in the Reign of King Charles II. used no Liturgy no Cross after Baptism nor any other Ceremony that ever I could learn and yet the Dissenters there behaved themselves far worse to the Conformists than ever the Jews did to the Samaritans nay so barbarously as undeniably to evince that the true Presbyterian Spirit is no less full of rancour malice spleen hatred and when let loose from fear of Laws of Robberies Persecution and Bloodshed than the Papal If any fay this is nothing to us the English Presbyterians are not like the Scotch I answer God forbid they should but yet that any alterations in our Liturgy c. Abolishing of all our Ceremonies c. would never make an Union in our Church is apparent from hence that some few Years after 1640. and thence till 1661. When the Supreme Authority lodged as was pretended in the House of Commons with the assistance of the Rabble had disowned the King's Authority in Church and State and thrown all our Laws thereunto relating out of doors and our Liturgy Rites Ceremonies Church-customs Constitutions and Canons were all abolished and discharged so that if the cause of the Con-conformity Schism and Separation lay in any or all of them it must necessarily have been removed The Dissenters were so far from an Union among themselves 〈◊〉 â— by â— Mr. 〈…〉 that on the contrary they subdivided themselves into many minute Sects and Opinions and gave birth or revival to about forty more than our Church was formerly troubled with some whereof neither Amsterdam nor the World it self had ever seen before And this is so convincing an Argument being taught us by experience the School Mistress of Fools that I need add no more for the proof of my Assertion but I subjoin ex abundanti If our Liturgy should be altered our Ceremonies abolished and our Constitutions and Canons till they became insignificant so that one or two of the gravest wisest and most moderate of the Dissenting Preachers for the love of Peace and Union having Episcopal Ordination should come over to our Church and conform unto it yet the main Body of the Presbyterians who being unacquainted with Antiquity have credulously embraced the opinion of Lay Elders believe the Ordination of Presbyters by Presbyters to be valid and are too wise in their own Eyes to be informed The Independents who before separated from the Presbyterians and were numerous and powerful enough in Anno 1647. to supplant and displace them The Anabaptists and Quakers whose opinion of Liberty of Prophesying makes them uncapable of being united in Church Polity And all the other subdivisions and lesser Sects and Relicks of Schisms having the same Reasons must be supposed to continue in the same Separation as formerly and consequently by these means would never be reunited to our Communion and Church Some of their Teachers would be conscious to themselves of their own Ignorance and that their whining Tones useful impletives of Hums Huh's spittings Coughings c. Canting Phrases affected and unintelligible expressions so melting and ravishing to the Apron-proselytes would not meet with that applause and Admiration in a more judicious Auditory and a Congregation used to the more pertinent solid and rational Discourses made by the learned Clergy in the Conformable Churches and therefore will think it prudence rather to stay where they imagine themselves highly in esteem than to go where their defects will render them only tolerable Others since our Church is abundantly supply'd with learned and deserving Divines which will and may with good reason expect the best Benefices and their qualifications being none of the greatest they consulting their own interest perhaps will judge the Mens present gratuities together with their Wives superadded and secret kindnesses more eligible than the probability of being provided after a considerable long expectation with a small One Others as if
most Orthodox and best constituted Church now Visible to the World And though the Dissenters in general thought it advantagious to their cause to pretend objections against the Liturgy Rites Ceremonies and Constitutions of the Church of England as being founded in Conscience and the most plausible because the Obligations of it depend upon the WIll of God the Supreme Law-giver and the insincerity of the pretence not easily demonstrable Yet since according to their own Principles sufficiently known such a Schism as theirs from our Church now is is sinful and a Toleration not to be allowed it must rationally be imputed to other Motives and Inducements for had they been Men of a modest temper peaceable disposition pious and regular lives they would have been very careful not to have given offence they would have submitted themselves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake They would never have separated upon the accompt of kneeling at Prayers and standing up at the repetition of the Creed and Gospel and yet these are all that are enjoyn'd the Congregation in our daily and weekly Publick Worship or of any indifferent Rite or Ceremony retained in our Church for the sake of Order Decency Unity Communion with the Primitive and Catholick Church and avoiding of scandal or of any other Rite Ceremony Vestment Gesture or Custom whatsoever not evidently sinful in it self and so rigorously enjoyn'd them that they must necessarily either make that particular Rite Ceremony Vestment Gesture or Custom their own by an actual participation in it and approbation of it or be excluded from Communion This last being the only case in which it can be lawful to separate from a national establish'd Church had it been observed all our Dissenters Quakers and other Enthusiasts only excepted notwithstanding any different Opinions about smaller matters would have continued in the Communion of our Church as we may observe the several Factions Parties and orders in the Church of Rome though disagreeing sufficiently amongst themselves in many things yet make no Separation from it By what hath been said I suppose it evident that this unhappy Schism was not caused by our use of the present Liturgy any Rites Ceremonies and Constitutions of our Church and consequently that any alteration of them whatsoever or even a total abolition of them would never put an end to it neither is there any other way to do it but one and that is by the alteration of Persons and not of things if the Dissenting Teachers for the Love of Souls and the Restoration of Peace to this miserably divided Church would be persuaded though but for a while to act counter to their seeming rather than real worldly Interests and exercise self-denial to unsay what they have unjustly to serve Sinister Interests said in imputing any thing of Popery or Superstition to any Ceremony or Custom in our Church teach their Disciples and prevail with them effectually to lay aside all that prepossession prejudice pride self-conceit malice superstition erroneous Opinions love of opposition untractableness and censoriousness which they have all this while industriously and designedly instill'd into them and leaven'd them with and to put on that humble innocent modest and docible temper which our Saviour speaks of in Children and recommends to us in imitation of them in the Gospel guide them to their own proper Folds whence they have injuriously for their Fleece sake and other their own ends seduced them and then either qualifie themselves to become their lawful Pastors or by their good Instructions and Examples learn them as in duty bounden to be content to be taught by them that are it may be done our Liturgy Rites c. remaining entire but without such a conscientious concurrence assistance and complyance though all of thâ—m should be altered as much as can be proposed or what is really designed by some abolished it will never be attained And though the Dissenting Teachers to silence their own and satisfie their Disciples Consciences when accusing them as guilty of Schism cast the blame on the Church of Englands Liturgy and Constitutions as the cause of it and it is probable that had they seen no preparation of attempts to remove those objections nor nothing proposed to the Convocation in order thereunto they would have continued to insist upon them with loud and repeated exclamations yet by their since present silence in that point by their inveighing against Episcopacy and other Laudable Church-Rites and Customs approved by all the Reformed Churches in their late Pamphlets and by their repetitions of their Usurp'd Schismatical and Invalid Ordinations in so plentiful a manner in the interim it appears plainly that notwithstanding their complaints they are really unwilling for fear of being put to the trouble of inventing new ones and so by the shifting of the Scenes too often the juggle should be in danger of being discovered that their old pretended grievances should be removed and that they never did sincerely intend to put an end to the Schism and hence it is that as I am credibly informed several of their Teachers have entred into new Combinations and Conspiracies never to re-unite themselves with the Church of England notwithstanding any endeavors or alterations any omissions or condescensions that should be made or granted to that purpose in their favour and to the same end if the Bodies of their Pamphlets correspond to their Titles several of them have lately written So that upon the whole matter he that shall consider the Original growth and propagation of the Schism will easily perceive that as hitherto some other Motives more than those of their Consciences and our Ceremonies caused the Dissenters to begin continue and increase it so now notwithstanding they continue to pretend the same objections their design is not seriously to put an end to it and strengthen the Church by a Re-union of themselves with it but to gain an opportunity of vain glorying and insulting over her interpreting all alterations though granted but as Free Benign and Paternal Condescensions as demonstrations and concessions that the Established Church hath been all this while in the wrong and they themselves in the right to expose contemn and deride their Folly Levity and Cowardise in deserving their own Principles and to undermine and reduce the Church to that weak and languishing condition in which it cannot long be preserved from utter ruine by taking away her Foundations Constitutions and Establishments which have till now supported Her as Impregnable against both the Papists and Themselves and thereby in time be able once more to grasp the Revenues of both Crown and Mitre and if their Potent Rivals the Independents interpose not too early and powerfully having destroyed both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government to make themselves Peers in Church and State Quod tamen absit FINIS
great a change if due regard be had to those who are very well satisfyed that all things should continue as they are to be huddled up in hast by a few Persons the Affair is weighty enough to consult both the Universities and all the Clergy in England which may easily be done in the space of one Year at their several Visitations Late experience may convince us how inconvenient it is to impose the Sentiments of some few Persons in particular things to be generally approved of consented to and joyned in by the whole National Church Let all our Reverend Pious Pa◠〈…〉 and Learned Church-Men weigh well the manifold considerations that oblige them by all means to endeavour that the the advancement of the Protestant Interest at home and abroad For so his Argument if it be one should run Otherwise we must suppose K. William came not to preserve the Government of Church and State our Laws and Religion but to alter both and to make new Laws and Establish another Religion and our parting with them now will shew that either he never came to preserve them or that we give him little thanks for so doing For suppose a Gentleman's House on Fire and his Friend coming to his assistance should make it his chief care to save a Cabinet wherein he knew his Gold Jewels and chief Writings concerning his Estate were kept and should with the utmost difficulty and danger effect it and the Gentleman who own'd it should when brought to him take it and cast it into the Thames would not his Friend think himself ungratefully rewarded for his service and his care pains and hazard ill bestowed in the Preservation of that which when in danger the Owner pretended to value above all things â—bid but when preserved threw away Let it not give offence if I say that we shall be ungrateful towards Dissenters It seems our Author had run about half a Page in full cariere before he could stop but now remembring himself to have been guilty of an expression improper unwarrantable and offensive in joyning the Dissenters with Christ our Sovereign â—bid he strives to justifie or excuse it saying 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 Penal Laws by which they had smarted so much This expression almost makes me doubt whether I have not hitherto mistaken the design of his Pamphlet in judging it to be intended for an Harangue made in favour of the Dissenters against that Church which he pretends to be ingaged in for it is so far from truth in a literal sense that I know not how to understand it but as an Ironical upbraiding them with and exposing them for their carriage in those days However if the filling the Gazettes for so many Months with Addresses and in them the giving thanks for Liberty of Conscience granted by a dispensing Power designed in favour of the Papists and their weakning of the Church of England by their running back again into Conventicles upon that account if their promising in some Addresses implicitely to choose such Representatives as should comply with his Majesties desire in others explicitely to choose such as should take off the Penal Laws and Test then they were so â—bid if not then the contrary He adds There were more of our own Communion than of theirs that revolted from us and turned against the Laws This account differs from mine therefore I will not allow it but demand a Poll and will not believe him nor be determined without it and a Scrutiny upon it â—bid 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 I am afraid that is too good News to be true for by all that I have read of them in History Chronology c. by their Intriguing for the Election of Members as formerly in all other so now in this Parliament and by all that I could see hear or observe to this day induced thereunto I do not believe they are or in this World ever will be quiet if our Author believed they were contented why did he trouble himself they need not his impertinent Advocacy nor will thank him for it Doth he think to draw them out of their Conventicles where they are now by this Act of Indulgence lodg'd as safe as a Thief in a Mill to dance after his Pipe So that he might easily have apprehended that this attempt for them if he had no design of his own to serve in it whether it took effect or not must needs be made in vain The meetings of Dissenters are as legal as ours Iâ—â—â— As to the Laws of the Land which I doubt not are here referr'd to The Lawyers say Conventicles are against the Common Law and I suppose they are at least reductively and analogically contrary to Magna Charta I am sure they are contrary to many Statutes the Rubricks confirm'd by divers others and the Ecclesiastical Laws and Canons confirm'd by Royal Authority and consequently according to the whole body of our Laws are illegal and therefore I do not believe that one Statute of disputable Authority which only conditionally suspends the execution of some Penal Statutes yet unrepeal'd can make their Meetings as legal as ours He adds Ibâ—â— None are by the Law of God or Man obliged to hold Communion with as upon the present terms As for the Law of God I refer the Author and all his dissenting Clients to those places of holy Scripture where Unity Love Peace Order Decency Unanimity Brotherly-kindness Charity Uniformity Humility Gentleness Mildness Obedience c. are commanded and where Pride Malice Envy Hatred Carnality Self-conceit Turbulency Contention Disorder Disobedience Atheism Apostacy Heresie Schism Separation Divisions Scandals Offences c. are forbidden All these the Laws of the Land both Civil and Ecclesiastical and I might add the Law of Nature and if they availed any thing the Laws of Reason Justice and Charity oblige all persons Foreiners not naturalized onely excepted to hold Communion with us upon the present terms as long as we remain a true Christian visible and National Church and nothing which is imposed upon all persons communicating with us is demonstrated to be directly sinful Ibâ—â— And God may charge upon them viz. those who are for our Church its continuing as it now is and as his present Majesty hath often promised and once sworn to keep and maintain it as many have sworn never to endeavour any alteration in the Government of it and as our Author himself hath subscrib'd and declared his assent and consent to her Liturgies Articles c. 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 Sydney Cornish c. A strange piece of Theology fathering that upon the just and merciful God which a Magistrate or Judge of but common honesty would not have said of himself were it but for shame I challenge the Author whoever he is to give any tolerable sense of that Expression at the peril of his Reputation In the mean time I shall pass them over adding only in the behalf of the Religion Laws and justice of the Nation That the Earl of Essex's death is to be lamented but to be made no other use of till it be better known how it was compassed if he died by his own hand we ought not to judg him but leave him to stand or fall to his own Master if by the hands of others Why do not they who long since pretended the Murther was detected bring the Murtherers to Justice hanging is too good for them And of the Lord Russel Mr. Sidney Alderman Cornish c. I am not willing to say much perhaps they had hard measure and suffered summum jus but the title of Glorious Champions for our Religion and Laws I cannot allow them for I think they neither designed nor used the proper or lawful means or Methods to be so It cannot properly be said of any Man who after a legal Trial is condemned by a Court of Justice legally authorized to take cognizance of the Crime whereof he is accused that he was murthered no though he was malitiously sworn against and not guilty of the Crime for which he suffered for then the fault is in the Evidence and not in the Court Some Credit certainly is to be given to the justice of any Nation as such much more of a Nation where Christianity is profess'd and every Man concerned in it upon his Oath When the Papists accuse this Nation of persecution for Religion and Sanguinary Laws and boast of their Martyrs as they call them and say they died for the Catholick Faith and a good Conscience We produce their Trials our Records and Chronicles to prove that those very Jesuits and Seminary Priests of which they speak were attainted of High Treason or Felony and executed for the same and expect belief 2. 〈◊〉 ◠4 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 recompense their diligence The Men of the Church of England desire to be wise unto Sobriety to be taught by the observation of elder times and their own Reason They know that since Men living here have Bodies as well as Souls some external Rites Habits and Gestures must be used in the publick Worship of God that such due regard being had to their lawfulness in themselves their expediency in respect of Communion with the Catholick Church scandal of any particular Church concerned and the edification of our own Church 〈◊〉 are determinable by the Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority of this Kingdom That the said Authority having interposed accordingly and prescribed these now in use as few ancient 〈◊〉 inoffensive tending most to Uniformity Decency and Devotion and consequently best answering all the forementioned purposes and established them by as good Laws as any are made in the Kingdom they are not yet convinced by any solid Reasons hitherto appearing much less by the virulent Railing rather than Arguments of this Author who hath demonstrated nothing so much as his prepossession and prejudice his unruly Passion and the large liberty he takes in abusing every body but his Clients the Dissenters that any change or alteration is necessary to be made in the present Service of our Church They are already well aware that Innovations usually let in more and greater inconveniencies than they remove That proud peevish and ungovernable Spirits will object against every thing and be satisfied with nothing and that the designs interests and ambition of some the prejudice of education weakness of judgment and perversness of temper of others would make even a total abolition of Ceremonies as ineffectual for the producing of a reunion of the Dissenters to the Church as the attempts of others for the continuance of them As for the endeavours for a comprehension and the objections against it which our Author mentions it seems by the event that either the comprehension was judged not feasible or the objections of force enough to stop the endeavors after it And certainly the best way we have or can have to preserve the Members of our Church from turning Papists now the doors of liberty are set open to all Religions and Men may chuse which they please is to let them see that we have some regular constancy in our Worship and Devotion as well as the Papists for otherwise our giddiness and frequent changes in Religious Worship will confirm them in their belief that the being of an Infallible Judge is necessary since they may observe that we who reformed under pretence of a greater purity having forsaken that Principle of Unity can never be long at any certainty That the Doctrine Worship and Constitutions of our Church which our Martyrs maintained with the loss of their Lives in Q. Mary's Reign and we thought to be lately in so great danger were not so adhered to out of vain-glory or love of opposition but out of a well grounded choice proceeding from a conviction of Judgment and Testimony of Conscience and therefore we can as little be flattered out of them now as we could be frighten'd out of them then I might add that the strength of that objection being founded in the Laws and Rules of Justice Sincerity Charity and of not giving offence and laying a Stumbling-block before any of our Communion or theirs will never cease at least as long as any Papists remain in this or rather in the three Kingdoms neither will the appearance of Popery in its proper Colours take off the obligation but bind us not to retaliate injuries and to be careful that while we condemn them we do not run into the same or greater enormities I am afraid that our carriage of late Years will be no great inducement to them to come over to our Communion or otherwise to have any very good opinion of us or our Principles if they should judge of them by our Practices That passage which our Author quotes out of a Sermon 〈…〉 in these words God be thanked for it that there is an end put to all Persecution in matters of Conscience 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 c. Wherein is included this Affirmative it is the first and chief Right of Humane Nature to follow the dictates of Conscience in the Service of God to the truth of which I cannot no not upon so great Authority give my Assent for if Humane Nature hath such a
Right God who is the Author of Humane Nature must be the giver of it but that he never gave any such Right to Mankind appears from Exod. 20.4 5 6. Because God who is the Author of the Law of Nature is none of those short-sighted Legislators which make a latter Law contrary to the former and the Moral Law hath always been expounded as explanatory but never as contradictory to the Law of Nature neither will it help to say that tho God might contradict the Law of Nature yet man cannot for both the Law in Deut. 13.6 c. and the approved practice of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18.4 c. quite overthrow that pretence nor will it avail to say that Idols are not Gods for besides that the Heathen did not Worship the Idol as the God it self but some as the Representation or Visible Resemblance and others as the Body or Vehicle of the God which they supposed to be present therein there is the same reason for the Dictates of Conscience to be free in the one Case as in the other and the whole Worship must be supposed agreeable to the Dictates of their Consciences since no other reason can be assigned for the Institution of it 2. If this were true then Hezekiah and Josiah for what they did 2 Kings 18.4 and 23.4 c. to 17. were most wicked Persecutors and unjust Invaders of that first and chief Right and yet they are both highly commended for what they did herein Ch. 18.3 c. 23. v. 24 25. 3. It would from hence follow that if any Men from Turkey the East or West-Indies should come hither and follow their Mahometan Pagan or Diabolical Worship or if this new Indulgence as the late Rebellion should cause a Resurrection of the Adamites and they should go naked through the Streets to their Conventicle which is as justifiable as their being naked at it they must not be hindred by the Magistrate for fear of Invading that first and chief Right of Humane Nature of following the Dictates of Conscience in the Service of God Lastly the Dictates of Conscience are by no Divines affirmed to be the Rule of it And if they are the first and chief Right of Humane Nature in the Service of God I see no reason why they should not be so as much or rather much more in all other actions of the life and then the Jews in killing the Apostles John 16.2 and St. Paul in Persecuting the Christians Acts 9.1 c. ought not to be hindred Or the Anabaptists in Germany the Presbyterians in Scotland the Dragoons in France all pretending Conscience for their several Barbarities to be interrupted and every thing must be allowed for which the Dictates of Conscience may be pretended for fear of abridging this first and chief Right of Humane Nature The Act of Indulgence sets all Men at liberty and it comes not long after a very fierce Persecution Our Author by virtue of an Act of Indulgence which sets all Men at liberty makes an unhandsome reflection upon K. Charles II. in his Grave and his two Houses of Parliament in calling the Late Legal Moderate Prosecution of the Dissenters unto which their Caballing Intriguing and Plotting provoked the Government a fierce a very fierce Persecution Not to mention that the Presbyterians were the first among the Reformed who taught and practised Persecution or the carriage of that people where ever they have gotten the Secular Power of their party or the concurrence of it and particularly here in England betwixt the Years 1640 and 1660. It is to be considered that during the pretended Persecution no Man was under any legal pressure for holding any Opinion or performing any religious exercise in his own Family but only for his external action not necessary to Religion and his publick frequenting of and joyning in such Assemblies as experience had taught to have been dangerous to the Government and therefore prohibited under a pecuniary penalty and farther that this prosecution was founded upon a Law invented and consented unto by the People's Representatives in whose Persons the whole Commons of the Kingdom are virtually interpretatively and determinatively comprehended So that by consequence if it was a Persecution the people persecuted themselves or at least the Representatives the persons represented which is not to be supposed they would do under that Notion Therefore in common Reason and Charity it must be supposed That the Parliament the grand Council of the Nation advised and consented to that as to all other Laws for the publick good and safety a moderate Coercion of such illegal Assemblies and a wholesom Statute to prevent a factious and dangerous Schism and establish an Uniformity in divine Worship though time and experience have proved it as ineffectual as the abolishing of Liturgies Ceremonies Church-Orders and Constitutions c. were any so senseless as to try the experiment would now be to reduce them to Unity Order Peace or Reason We can impose these things upon none but the Ministers and their Clerks Pag 〈…〉 Then all others being unconcerned may be satisfied And if nothing be imposed on them What is it they complain of or would be eased from Why doth our Author rage rave and be in such a mighty heat in the behalf of Dissenters for the pulling down such Ceremonies as are imposed on none but the Minister and Clerk cannot he let the Minister and his Parish-Clerk keep their Ceremonies if they please as well as let him have a May-pole who hath a mind to one Ibâ—â— As knowledg encreaseth Zeal for Ceremonies will grow more and more ridiculous That is a great mistake Had it been for his purpose he might more truly have said As Knowledg encreaseth opposition to Ceremonies will vanish For Scrupulosity the parent of Opposition if conscientious is the Child of Ignorance It is generally believed that there is no Rite Ceremony or Custom enjoined and practised in the Church of England but the same is fully and sufficiently explained maintained defended and vindicated by the Learned Mr. Hooker Dr. Falkener Dr. Comber c. to the satisfaction of all free indifferent and competent Judges whether Natives or Foreiners And as far as I could ever observe the more knowing discreet and pious Men are so much the more conformable to the established Church and accordingly it is in every Man's observation that the more learned and judicious Men of all persuasions Opinions and Sects are the most moderate and the vulgar and unthinking Herd the most violent and furious hence the Epithete of blind Zeal And that to be doubtful timorous and scrupulous in things indifferent of small moment and not essential to Religion are symptoms of little knowledg weak judgment and an erroneous Conscience appears sufficiently from the Apostles Discourse in the 14 and 15. Chapters of his Epistle to the Romans As to our Authors new Project of the Parliaments making a Law that the Members of both Houses shall
enjoyned the Congregation in the ordinary Publick Worship prescribed in the Church of England Will the removal of them take away the Vizor with which Formalists Hypocrites Wicked and Prophane Men cover themselves Wicked and Prophane Men as the words themselves imply are bare-fac'd Sinners and wear no Vizor and as for Formality and Hypocrisie they were never since the Ancient Pharisees used by any more than by our Modern Sectarists nor ever so much in esteem and fashion as since the number of those who under that disguise decry Ceremonies made them bold and confident Had kneeling at Prayers and standing at the Creed and Gospel been such an excellent Vizor it would not be prudence in us to abolish them especially for nothing for many of the Dissenters who need a Vizor as well as others would either use them in their Conventicles or come over to us themselves merely for the benefit of them but suppose what it is almost ridiculous to suppose viz. that our Author had herein spoken Truth and Reason yet the removal of Ceremonies would effect little as to that for we find that the Dissenters who seldom kneel at Prayers or use the Creed and have no Gospel have yet under the Vizor of purity preciseness and tenderness of Conscience done abundantly beyond all that ever Ceremonies can or could pretend to neither need we to strip our Church Offices of these and run from the little remainders of decency remaining in use in our Churches into down-right rusticity and more than Corinthian rudeness in our Publick Worship in hopes that then Drunkards 〈…〉 Swearers Whoremongers and such like will be known to be what they are a mere Herd of Brutes It would be a foolish and too costly an experiment and an extravagant instance of our levity and indiscretion but no discovery unless of that which every body knows already or if any Man wants farther satisfaction herein let him repair to our Author who can tell him such wonderful things concerning Rites Ceremonies c. as all the World never dream'd on before nor any Man of but ordinary Sense and Judgment will believe now 5. Mischiefs in promoting a mighty increase of profaneness and all kind of wickedness Pag◠〈…〉 1. Profaneness in the outragious contempt of holy things The tautologies impertinencies improper inferences and untrue assertions of our Author's Pamphlet are too many to be consider'd or remark'd but a Man must either have a conceit of himself like to that of his own Infallibility or else he must presume wonderfully upon the simplicity dulness and ignorance of his Readers before he comes to put such down right contradictions upon them Him who all this while he hath bitterly inveigh'd against as a Bigot and Zealot he now makes a profane and outragious contemner of holy Things whereas Zeal when taken in ill part for Superstition and profaneness are and always were esteemed the two contrary extremes and vices on either side Religion There is scarce any thing in Religion that hath escaped the scorn and reproach of blind Zealots The Ordinance of Preaching the Lords Day the Scripture our Holy Religion and Jesus Christ himself all have been struck at To scorn and reproach Preaching Scripture the Lord's Day c. hath been always hitherto look'd upon as a Sign of a Profane and not of a Zealous Person and this Author hath shewn us no reason to change our Sentiments but suppose his words to be true hence we may observe 1st That a Schism caused by a difference in belief though erroneous can never be reunited by the abolition of Ceremonies for the cause remaining the effect would continue 2ly That the apprehensions of Men being so various and their judgments so discrepant a comprehension without a compliance in things indifferent and a forbearance with Men in their particular Opinions can never be effected but these being once supposed it may follow as things now are 3ly That there are divers others as extravagant Zealots as our Author whose Notions are altogether impracticable who encrease the Schism and widen the Separations in the Church under pretence of making propositions for a comprehension and should not be regarded till they learn more discretion and moderation than at once to ask the abolishing of all Ceremonies the exercise of jurisdiction 〈…〉 and power of Orders and the pulling down the whole Constitutions of our Church The Ordinance of Preaching 〈…〉 21. The constant serious diligent performing of this would spread knowledge amongst the People to the prejudice of humane impositions in Divine Worship They would see what light things they are in the Service of God 〈…〉 43. The Constitutions of the Church of England are so far from discouraging or obstructing constant serious diligent Preaching as our Author would insinuate that on the contrary she requires and enjoyns it so that in that sense even the Ordinance of Preaching may properly be called an Humane Imposition neither do we of her Communion if Passionate Malicious Schismatical Sinister-designing Railing go not as often it hath under that notion fear any prejudice thereby ensuing to any Impositions in use in our Divine Worship We wish all Men in our Communion and in theirs too were more knowing pious discreet honest and conscientious than all the Preaching of Dissenters and our Author with all others of his Opinion is ever like to make them We would be glad all Men did see what light things all our Impositions and Ceremonies both are in the Service of God hoping then they would be better satisfied both of the lawfulness and decency of them and if their prejudices and interests which with ignorance are the great causes of our Schisms and Separations should not hinder would approve of them and conform to the use of them for their lightness adds to their weight and value and their easiness and fewness to their Commendation for those Impositions and Ceremonies which were otherwise allowable as were the Jewish when their numbe like theirs makes them weighty Matt. 〈…〉 become a burthen too heavy to be born As for Preaching it must be confess'd to be far less necessary now at least in a converted Nation than when the World was Pagan And whereas the Papists have resolved all publick religious Duties into Prayers and the Dissenters have run into the other extreme and placed them in long Preachments the Church of England hath herein as in most other things retained the golden Meane and useth both and tho frequency is more necessary to the former yet the latter is not to be neglected but when it excludes Catechizing the change is made for the worse and indeed were that most useful way of instruction of both the young and ignorant much used in the Primitive Church and prescribed by our own revived throughly performed and duly frequented Can. 〈…〉 61. as it would be far more difficult to the Teacher so it would be far more beneficial to the People than Preaching The
greatest prejudices they labour under in that Church upon that account is the abolishing of Confession to the Priest and of Publick and Catholick Church fasts However what our Author adds viz. Ibiâ— The Quarrels occasioned by them hinder the Progress of the Reformed Religion must be granted if it be understood that the many Divisions and variety of Sects amongst us is an Objection the Papists make against the translation of the Bible into the vulgar Tongue and their pretence for their not coming over into that Church which is already so full of subdivisions caused as they think by the forsaking of the visible Head of the Church here on Earth under whose conduct they therefore continue as the only means to preserve Unity and avoid confusion But this must not be charged upon the Church whose Moderation is designed as a preservative of Union but on those perverse and humoursom Persons whom nothing will satisfie there is nothing in use in our Church but he who condemns it must condemn with it the Catholick Church of Christ and he who dare do that is a man no ways fit to be gratified by the condescension of a Nation and the alteration of the most perfect Liturgy and the best Ecclesiastical Constitutions that any visible Church now known to us enjoys Pag◠〈…〉 All wise and good Men amongst the Clergy and People desire the taking away the Instruments of our Confusions The execution of this would extend farther than our Author intends it or for fear of his own Copy-hold would assent to Many Pharisaical Zealots by an opposite Superstition in whose number I place him injuriously accuse our innocent Ceremonies as the instruments of our confusions when indeed they are not as we shall shortly consider but Men which if they should be taken away or brought within the compass of the Apostle's wish 〈◊〉 5.12 the Conventicle-doors would be shut up and our Author himself dismiss'd Ceremonies have been Cloaks of Impiety and Maliciousness â—â—id if these are continued it will be exceeding difficult to purge out Vice which will shelter it self under them This Expression like the greatest part of his Pamphlet hath an abundance of prejudice and malice but no truth or shew of Reason for how is it possible that Ceremonies should be the Cloak of Impiety whenas if the Ceremonies be supposed to be numerous vain or not agreeable to the simplicity and spiritual sincerity of the Christian Religion for then only they become noxious they indeed become the parents of Superstition but can never as such be the Cloaks of Impiety because it is the opposite extreme Why may not that Man who kneels at his Prayers and stands at the repetition of the Creeds and Gospels as easily have his Vice purged out as he who sits at his Prayers and frequents a schismatical Meeting where they use no Creeds nor Gospels Or what strange Vice is it which can shelter it self more about a Man kneeling or standing in our Church than about one who sits in a Conventicle These are such gross absurd malicious and false insinuations and assertions of our Author's that I wonder he is not ashamed to propose them to a Convocation or even to undervalue himself by writing them or can in Conscience thus abuse the credulous Vulgar whose unaccountable prejudices are by such Artifices very easily improved into Malice and Schism Debauchery came in with Ceremonies 〈◊〉 28. we shall be happy if they fall together To make this good if we pass by the Brittish Churches our Author must grant that Debauchery came into England with Augustine commonly called St. Augustine sent hither by Gregory the Great Bishop of Rome in the seventh Century for he brought more Ceremonies in with Christianity 〈◊〉 Testâ—â—y to 〈◊〉 Truth â—â—esus â—â—st and â—â—ur â—â—mn â—â—gue than are now in use in our Church but this I suppose he never thought of However that Debauchery hath no dependence on Ceremonies appears even from hence that in the late times of Rebellion wherein the Government both of Church and State being dissolved and there was no King every one did that which was right in his own Eyes all sorts of Vice Wickedness and Debauchery grew up to that strength and vigour that they have never since been rooted out of this Kingdom and though now we should part with all our Ceremonies which we would very gladly do upon condition we could banish all Debaucheries with them yet there are no hopes to effect it as long as Schisms are no Crimes and the pretended Puritans are indulged in the sins of the godly and that God sees no sin in his Elect c. is allowed for Orthodox Divinity 2. They hinder love among the People and between the People and their Ministers 1. Love amongst the People is mightily hindred by the divisions and animosities caused by human Impositions That human Impositions are the causes of our Divisions and Animosities is presupposed by our Author since he asserts it without proof but this is but begging of the Question we must not grant him that as a Postulatum I leave what I design to say on the true causes of the Schism till the last In the mean time that love amongst the People is hindred by our Divisions and Animosities is too apparent to be denied tho that ought in truth and justice to be charged upon the Dissenters as the evil effects of their unnecessary and wilful separation for Ours being supposed which they also grant a true Christian Church their Schism becomes unnecessary and therefore sinful and these Animosities are the fruits of that Schism and the pride of their Spirits heightened by their Teacher's industrious railings against our Church and her Constitutions thereby to gain Proselytes to themselves and retain them to their own advantage Soon after the Restauration the Enemies of Piety and Virtue resolved to continue the division between the two most potent Interests of the Protestants in England to further this a Sham-plot was cast upon the Presbyterians in several Counties this was so improved in Parliament that Penal Laws were easily obtained to inslave and destroy the Dissenters By the Enemies of Piety and Virtue whosoever our Author means if we will reconcile it to Truth can be understood none but the Dissenters because it lay only in their power either to renew and continue a Division which they did or to reunite themselves with the Church of England as they ought to have done and so to have prevented the Evils which it hath since produced It is no wonder our Author takes such Liberty to make undecent if true reflections upon some single Persons when he ventures to cast such a severe tho oblique one upon the whole Parliament as to insinuate them all to be imposed upon by a Sham-plot yet I would gladly know how he came by such skill in discerning of Spirits as to discover that to be a Sham-plot which was cast upon the Presbyterians
he is welcome he will do good service he needs not fear the Law is on his Side Criminals ought to be brought to Justice and he may expect a Reward however he hath malice enough towards Clergy-men and perhaps for their sakes to the Priest ridden Gentlemen to discover them if he knew them and therefore unless he doth so what he says ought in all reason to be esteemed as a notorious Calumny and Libel and our Author to be dealt with accordingly Who brought Ireland and Scotland into their late and present condition is very well known 〈◊〉 6. All the pious sober and moderate Clergy-men are for a Union I believe they are so but all the Question is how we shall attain it an abundance of Men have undertaken to dictate to the Convocation many whereof have like the Cobler in the Proverb who went beyond his Last judged of things beyond the Verge of their knowledge and prescrib'd Methods both unreasonable and impracticable Our Author cannot be thought to have contributed to the cure but must be accounted amongst those unskilful Operators who instead of lessening and removing have only increas'd our Maladies and made them more incurable for in lieu of Wine and Oyl he hath brought Gall and Vinegar to pour into the Churches Wounds The account he gives of the rest of the Clergy is such as can be called no less than an heap of malicious false suggestions and slanderous railing accusations and deserves and admits of no particular answer If I should say of his magnify'd Clients the Dissenting Teachers some are whimsical Enthusiasts and not worthy our regard some are ignorant Dunces and incompetent Judges some are Proud and Hypocritical Pharisees and separate as their Predecessors amongst the Jews to be thought more holy than others that their Glory and Triumph consists in leading filly Women captive that instead of the Solid and Practical Doctrins taught in the Church of England they entertain their seduc'd and beguil'd Disciples with useless canting and unintelligible Phrases that their separation from our Communion was not so much out of Conscience as out of Pride Peevishness and Love of opposition to their Superiors in Church and State that they study more to avoid the scandal than the vice and differ from the most profane but as he who wears a Vizor from him who goes bare-fac'd that they all drive on a Carnal and Worldly Interest and do but maintain a Faction to be maintained by it I should do violence to my inclinations and intentions and write with almost as little civility and shew of good breeding but with far more truth and modesty than he hath done concerning the Clergy of the Established Church Our Author for fear his successive cajoling and railing should not prevail with the Church of England to part with those ancient Rites and laudable Customs wherein she holds Communion with the Primitive and Catholick Churches whereby she justifies her separation from the Roman and performs the solemn Worship of God with decency and uniformity in her own Publick Assemblies which her Pious and Prudent Reformers and Fathers recommending unto Authority are secured unto us by Laws and Constitutions and he in contempt calls Ceremonies proceeds now at length to threatnings to frighten her Members into a compliance and to this purpose he tells our Clergy-men that in the next Rebellion the People viz. the Dissenters will be severely reveng'd on them Pag. 〈◊〉 make sure work with them I suppose he means by cutting their Throats for that is as secure a way as any I know and totally extirpate them Whether our Author speaks these things experimentally from what some suffered in the late Rebellion or prophetically by vertue of his talent that way let the learned judge however we may see what manner of Spirit he and his Clients are of and how fit he is to be a Peace-maker and what manner of stuff he hath proposed to the Convocation he might well have called his Pamphlet the second part of the Healing Attempt As for those dreadful Comminations who can deny their being probable What passed between the Years 1635. and 1660. is sufficient to teach us that the usage of Presbyterians and Papists to those in their Power is much alike and that when they shall have the same or the like opportunities an indissolvible House of Commons to protect them and the Rabble to fight for them and their Brethren of Scotland to assist them they may expect the same or a worse Persecution for what fair Quarter can they look for when Kings are beheaded c. But in the mean time what would he have them to do to pull down their Churches themselves for fear the Dissenters should do it This is but for a Man to hang himself for fear of dying In the next National Deluge of Rebellion and Bloodshed which our Author Prophesies to be at hand and our Friends the Dissenters true Lovers of Peace desirers of Union and upholders of Monarchy in pursuance of their Solemn League and Covenant and for the establishment of their Godly Discipline shall bring upon us and therein overwhelm our Church and State they do not expect to escape nor are covetous to survive them and yet at present are not willing either to be the Authors of or to anticipate their own misery 2. Our danger of losing all our lately recovered Rights 〈…〉 if by our Divisions we should again let in the Common Enemy That our Church's parting with all her Liturgy Rites Ceremonies and what else our Author hath confidence enough to ask would not re-unite the Dissenters to the Establish'd Church I shall elsewhere endeavour to make apparent I shall therefore here only observe that in this time of danger all the Dissenters even the most Potent Interests as well as the lesser Sects would do well and wisely since better Motives will not prevail with them to re-unite themselves with the Church of England but to exhort the Church of England to go over to any of them is not so proper or decent The Agreement of the Church of England with Scripture and the Primitive and Catholick Church both in Doctrin and Government the moderation of her Reformation Her Apologies Defences and Vindications of her self and practices from the Calumnies of the Church of Rome and Separatists her Orthodoxness of Principles Regularity of Constitutions and Legal Establishments to which I might add the Personal obligations a great part of the Nation is under not to endeavour any alterations in the Government of either Church or State as by Law established all prohibit it and make it unequal and unreasonable And farther that if the Church of England will not for these and other reasons part with any Rite Ceremony laudable Custom or Constitutions till the Dissenters shall prove them unlawful or shew her better motives so to do yet there is therefore nothing the more danger of losing all our lately recovered Rights by letting in again the Common
Enemy unless we suppose the always peevish Fanaticks should now take the Pet because they are not humour'd in every thing and all turn Papists and going over into Ireland should doing in earnest what they in jest promised him stand by King James with their Lives and Fortunes As to our Author 's long excursion on the cruelties of the Papists it cannot be denyed even by him who would Advocate their Cause that they have used wrong unchristian and cruel Methods to preserve the Unity of their Church of which I hope they are now ashamed God forbid that the like should ever be used again or the same repeated Neither is it any more than truth that the Calvinists though they want their Opinion of merit to actuate them and that of the Damnation of all but those of their own Church to excuse them have yet so well improved the rest of their Principles and prosecuted them under a pretence of duty and the Obligations of Publick Conjurations with as great an industry as if they rival'd them and scorn'd to come short of their Example Popery under the Vizor of Zeal for the Extirpation of Heresie was the first Enemy the Reformed Church of England had to encounter and attempted to strangle it in it's Infancy but being overcome by the sincere practice of her Primitive Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance it vanish'd and left it in the possession of a most Glorious Victory which it enjoyed for a while but alass our seemingly vanquish'd Adversary by an equivocal Generation unfortunately became the Parent of a less affrightning but far more fatal Enemy Fanaticism not so professedly opposite to the Doctrine but in the event more destructive to the Polity Peace Order Decency Unity and Uniformity of our Church these two have both by open and secret Attempts successively made against her exercis'd our Churches Patience and persecuted her upon contrary accounts one because she will not and the other because she will use as is pretended a Ceremonious Worship O happy though unfortunate Church of England which for the best of Choices the Golden Meane of safety and moderation art thus persecuted on the Right Hand and on the Left by both the opposite Parties who like Herod and Pontius Pilate in their enmity to thy Lord agree in nothing but their continued Hostilities against thee I shall not recount the pretences made the means used by either of them for their so doing nor the event probably following but only note that Popery seeming to have made or at least designed the last assault Fanaticism may rationally be expected to make the next And that it may prove as much destructive as it is a foolish and unprofitable policy to run so far from the advances of one Enemy that we never stop till we are within the quarters of another Our Author might have remembred that Men of other Religions besides Popery can enter into Plots and Conspiracies strike at the Foundations of Government Resist Depose Assassinate and Murther Kings absolve Subjects from their Allegiance and dispense with the most horrid Wickednesses and consequently are as little to be trusted 3. Our danger in respect of God's Judgments which we may bring upon our Heads Though Popery should never be able to lift up its Head again in this Land yet if we continue in the same course that provoked God to cast us into the late confusions he can find other Plagues to inflict upon us I shall readily enough believe that Popery which seems to be withdrawn from us for a while is not that great Enemy this Church and State have now to conflict with and also that if the Men of this Nation will yet continue in their Sins and Follies which provoke Almighty God to wrath and subject us to his Punishments he can find other Plagues of the contrary extreme no less fatal to inflict upon us I wish we do not prevent his Judgments by finding out Plagues to afflict our selves and so become our own Executioners and Martyrs to our own lusts which God in anger and judgment suffers us to enjoy Are not Gods People now in Spiritual Captivity when they must not enjoy his Ordinances with us but upon terms they cannot conform to and he never appointed Our Author in his Fanatick Cant calls the Dissenters Gods People which must be understood either exclusively or eminently but they have no title to that Appellation in either sense But how is this reconcilable with what he hath told us before The Meetings of Dissenters are as Legal as ours and afterwards the Act of Indulgence sets all Men at liberty What then needs this whining and impertinent complaint of spiritual Captivity in times of too great liberty As for the Ordinances who ever hindred their enjoyment of them but they voluntarily refused to communicate with us made a perverse Schism and then complain of it and now they have what they wish'd for are no more satisfied than they were before are so unjust now when they have leave to use their own novel inventions and homely postures that they will not let us quietly enjoy our Ancient Catholick Decent and Legal Customs and so unreasonable that they will needs have us merely to humour them recede from our own approved and regular Constitutions and joyn in their Confusions and use their Customs though they are such as we cannot conform to and God never appointed If People did look before them and consider the Providence of God and tendency of things they would be more indifferent towards indifferent things Gods Providence is beyond our comprehension and his Precepts and not that should be the Rule of our Lives What our Author means by Peoples looking before them or the tendency of things I know not but think if Men would look behind them to the practice of the Primitive and Catholick Church for 1500 Years and not condemn all the Generations of God's Children certainly they would not separate from a Church which both in Doctrine and Discipline is so agreeable to the Primitive that they thereby do consequentially grant that there never was a Christian Church Visible in the World with which had they lived contemporary they would have held Communion or would look before them and consider whither these unreasonable and unnecessary Schisms tend and the lamentable mischiefs that will in time befall this unhappy Church and State as the effects and fruits thereof if they had either conscience or prudence they would cease making such violent and humoursom opposition against the Establish'd Order consult their own and the Churches Peace and be more wise and indifferent towards indifferent things As for Mr. Charnock's abusing of the Devil 〈…〉 in calling him Fool c. he being otherwise represented to us in Scripture perhaps it may be the result of his false Principles however I shall not much concern my self since it is impertinent to my purpose and I am no ways obliged to vindicate his reputation 2. 〈…〉
Our future danger from the continuance of Ceremonies and that in respect of the account we must give to our Judge Our Author it seems would have the World believe that we have many or at least some very dangerous Ceremonies in the Church of England whereas except kneeling and standing are such as I have already observ'd and his tautologies have often forc'd me to repeat there are no Ceremonies enjoyned to be observed by the Congregation in our Publick Worship and all the Ceremonies the Clergy are appointed by our Church to use in all her Publick Offices joyntly taken if Ceremonies are taken in that sense in which they include not Baptism and the Holy Communion exceed not three and those three are so inoffensive in themselves and innocent in their signification that none of the Dissenters could ever yet prove them unlawful and our Author who hath shewn malice enough by his railing thought fit to pass over that Topick in silence retained for so good ends and purposes and tend so much and evidently to Devotion Decency Order and Uniformity the Piety and Wisdom of our Reformers in reserving them and only them out of such a Multitude deserve not only to be commended but admired neither is it to be supposed that those Holy Men most of which either dyed or suffered Banishment in the Cause would clog and burthen that Doctrin and Reformation with evil or unprofitable Ceremonies which they were forced to espouse with the utmost peril of their Lives and Fortunes How will you at that day lift up your Faces before your Master and your Judge when he shall demand of you what is become of those his Lambs 〈…〉 which you drove into the Wilderness by needless Impositions Instead of other answer to this Question I shall ask another How will you O ye dissenting and seducing Teachers at that day lift up your Faces before your Master and your Judge when he shall demand of you what is become of those his Lambs which you have enticed and enveigled away from their own proper Pastors and Folds into the Wilderness by your needless oppositions to things lawful and indifferent by your perverse separation from a decent Establish'd Order and by your scandalous Schism from my true Church and making mischievous divisions in it Româ— 17 â—â— upon the specious pretence of Conscience when the true inward Motives were pride sensuality and interest and the effects have been prejudices censures malice railings seditions rebellions c To conclude notwithstanding all those dreadful denunciations of vengeance that our Author useth to affright our Clergy or the Members of our Church I doubt not but that it will be far more tolerable both for our Reformers who continued our present Rites and Ceremonies and the Clergy who since did and yet do use them in the Day of Judgment than for those who out of Pride and Interest oppose them upon their account make an unnecessary Separation from the Church or like our Author seditiously and schismatically libel the Government and Church to encrease the Enemies and endanger the Peace of both Some Considerations on the Author 1. HAD not our Author by an ambiguous if not fictious Subscription obtruded himself upon the World for a Clergy-man of the Church of England I should as well as others for ever as I did a long time have let his Pamphlet lye neglected upon the Booksellers Shop windows as being what the Title Page shews it a fardle of malice and railing prejudice and passion for such usually are the Pamphlets of our Adversaries and therefore fitter to be answered by silence and contempt than any other way If we take liberty to wave the Subscription and judg of the Author by his work he seems to be really though disguised a Jesuit or at least a Regular of some other Order in the Romish Church Commissioned as an Emissary and sent hither to disturb our Peace and this we may the more readily believe if we remember That the Church of Rome esteeming the Church of England because so like the Primitive both in Doctrine and Discipline and the only Church able to convince her of her corruptions and novelties her greatest and most invincible Enemy which since her Champions could neither by their Pens confute 〈…〉 nor by their Swords destroy they made it their business to weaken by divisions pursuant to which proposed Method long since in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign they set patterns to the Dissenters to make long extemporary Prayers to decry set Forms rail against our Liturgy Ceremonies the pretended corruptions of our Church and Popery it self for which good service one Faithful Comyn 〈…〉 in particular was rewarded by the then Pope with 2000 Ducats On the same errand were many other Jesuits sent over into these Kingdoms in the Reign of King Charles I. which how well they succeeded is but too well known And our Author following the same labour it is but rational to suppose him set on work by the same Master carrying on the same design and expecting the same issue and hoping for the same or the like reward 2. Or since the Pamphlet contains weak or rather no Arguments but instead thereof strong calumnies its Style is Fanatick-cant intermixt with down-right scurrilous railing and is with no less impertinence than conceited confidence proposed to the Convocation we may suppose our Author to be some small retailer of the Geneva-Discipline and Government who having read a Systeme or two where that Model is laid down as Orthodox Divinity is therewith so captivated and possessed with it that all others must be censured condemn'd and abolish'd to make room for it and being fully persuaded of the truth of those notions he judges every thing lawful or unlawful as it suits or disagrees with them neither will the subscription though in unusual terms By P. M. a Minister of the Church of England make it much less probable for Presbyterians besides an envy to the Episcopal Order because it is superior to their own and Antimonarchical Principles may have learned of their elder Brethren the Jesuits the useful art of Equivocation by virtue whereof our Author if he believes his own words in pag. 36. Our Brethren meaning the Dissenting holders forth have according to the Act of Indulgence subscribed our Doctrine and thereby are incorporated into the Church of England perhaps may think it in some sense to be reconcilable to truth and to this conjecture the use of that affected word Minister which as in use formerly in the Jewish Synagogue 〈◊〉 20. signified him who kept the Book and prompted the Reader according to its derivation a Servant and in the Christian Church a Deacon or Alms Keeper adds a great probability 3. But if our Author be really such as he designs to be thought a Clergy-man in the Church of England though a Minister or Deacon in the lowest Station he hath degenerated yet lower and become guilty of the
greatest prevarications his small abilities made him capable of It is true his Pamphlet being stuff'd with false Principles railing Invectives and scurrilous Reflections and wanting proper Motives to persuade or solid Arguments to convince can be supposed to operate only upon Persons of a deluded fancy prepossess'd intellect and infirm judgment and if he designed it for such as it is probable he did it may not altogether in respect of them be without some though evil effects However by the writing of it in such a manner he hath given very great occasion to others to think either that he for filthy lucres sake conformed to the Church Constitutions as by Law Established not following what proved most excellent to his judgment but what was most grateful to his desires because most agreeable to his Interests and Circumstances and that he declared his Assent and Consent outwardly to what he did not inwardly approve of and that with such a reluctancy against the Sentiments of his mind as could not be durable and therefore they have now made a violent eruption to the contradiction of his actions and the discovery of his Hypocrisie or that if being indifferent he did not disallow of what he did that now when he thought some alterations would be made in our Liturgy Canons c. with the same indifferency in things of Conscience and Zeal for Interest he strove to be one of the first to condemn what before he swore subscrib'd or declared his Assent and Consent unto and frequently used undecently and as I hope vainly thinking that being esteemed a Borderer upon Fanaticism though by such an odious contradiction of himself he should therefore be thought the better qualified for and nearer to preferment as if Hypocrisie Levity or Prevarications were the most eminent endowments and such as would most effectually recommend him thereunto Our Church in her being persecuted both on the one hand by Popish Hereticks and on the other by Fanatick Schismaticks hath often been said to be like to her Lord in that he was Crucified between two Thieves and now our Author if his Subscription be really true hath made Her resemble Him in another of his Sufferings viz. in being betrayed by a pretended Disciple and that as it is thought and to be feared in hopes of what his Predecessor more expresly covenanted for viz. a Money-reward Lastly upon the same supposition he hath given the World a notorious instance how necessary it is to continue the Impositions Constitutions Subscriptions c. enjoyned by our Church which he so much and so leudly declaims against for if neither the ingenuity of his Education the Dictates of his Conscience the Precepts of Holy Scripture the Canons and Constitutions of the Church nor his own Oaths Subscriptions Declarations and daily Practice could govern his prejudice malice or sinister designs how imprudent would it be either to remove those fences or lessen that security or cancel those obligations which the Piety and Prudence of our Superiors have placed for the preservation of our Church and so by a contemptible prostitution of them to the crafty pretensions of our insincere Adversaries expose our selves to no purpose but that of an insolent ridicule from the pride of a designing Enemy Our Author whosoever he is especially if what the Subscription to the Pamphlet intimates for his base and malicious prevarications hath evidently incurred the Excommunication ipso facto decreed in Canon 6. the Prosecution of him by virtue of which and the judicial inflicting of that or some other Ecclesiastical censure in salutem animae morum correctionem is a thing by the Constitutions of our Church committed to his Ordinary to whose care and discretion I recommend him Some farther Considerations of a Re-Union of Dissenters with the Church of England 1st IT is to be considered that the Dissenters could not without both a tacite reprehension of themselves and a supposition of our being very good natur'd and easie to be imposed upon have desired from the Church of England so much as a Toleration of their Publick Profession because the giving of it is contrary to both their own judgment and practice Mr. Calvin the Author of the Presbyterians from whom they derive both name and thing as also his Successor Theod. Beza taught and practis'd the Peâ—secutions of others differing from them in matters of Religion as the Papists do under the notion of Hereticks Of the same Opinion generally are all that Sect as appears not only by the Writings of those two already nam'd but by those of the Divines of Bearne Tigure Schaffhuse Basil c. by the Decree of the Synod of Dort against the Remonstrants and their Brethren here in England wrote against a Toleration of any differing from themselves from Sion College to the Assembly at Westminster An. 1645. And for matter of practice the burning of Servetus and their other transactions of Affairs at Geneva the long actual Persecution of the Remonstrants by the Contra-Remonstrants in Holland And the Carriage of that Party here when they had usurp'd Power in the Year 1642 c. was such towards the Clergy and others of the Church of England as would in all Justice Reason and Conscience stop their Mouthes from all complaints against her for ever at least till the Burthen laid on them by Law becomes heavier than what they impos'd on her by Illegal Force to omit the unjustice violence robberies barbarities tumults and insurrections done committed and raised in Scotland under pretence of Religion are sufficient Evidences That their Younger Brethren the Independents are of the same Principle their attempts here 〈…〉 their Persecution of the Quakers their making it penal for any Man to abstain from his work or to observe the Christians grand Festival called Christmas-day and their other Laws relating to Religion c. in New-England are Testimonies too convincing to leave a place for doubting The Anabaptists by their Extravagancies committed under pretence of Conscience and Religion have discredited themselves in Germany c. And might no doubt if numerous enough be dangerous elsewhere The Fifth-Monarchy-Men though but an handful shewed in this City what we might have expected from them had their number enabled them to prosecute their designs The Quakers are yet in their Minority both as to Age and Number how they will behave themselves if they live to attain both or whether they will then continue in their seeming innocence is not yet known Hereby it appears I hope sufficiently that the Dissenters in general are against a Toleration of other Religions and therefore can have no Plea for it founded in Conscience Right or Debt Yet so far is the disposition of the Church of England from any Persecution of the Dissenters though justifiable both by their own Principles and Practices and the equal Rule of retaliation for Religion as our scurrilous and malicious Author insinuates falsly and brings a railing accusation against her that she hath at least
the pertinacious continuance in a perverse and mischievous Schism was as commendable as the bearing testimony to the good fundamental truths of the Gospel or a constancy to the profession of Christianity in times of danger and persecution will take pride to appear in the Eyes of their small Disciples as Men of resolution and courage who resisted the Temptation and stood firm to their Principles and so by a dexterous manage of all the Revolutions and putting suitable colours and pretences upon their Actions in all circumstances like him who sails with all Winds make the perseverance in as well as the entrance into a criminal Separation seem a Virtue and both tend to the enhaunsement of their Reputation and think it no small acquisition and degree of Happiness to be great and high in the esteem and to receive the gifts and kindnesses the Applauses and Caresses of the holy Sisters II. The Schisms and Separations made by the Dissenters from the Church of England did arise from other occasions and Causes than the Church's retaining some few Ceremonies using the present Liturgy and enjoyning of the prescribed Subscriptions and therefore will not upon or by the abolishing of the first and the making any how great soever alterations in the other two be again closed and re-united 1st When some of our first Dissenters went beyond the Seas to avoid the Persecutions here and lived in Geneva Frankfurt Strasburgh Arn heim c. They returned with a pertinacious adhering to and an unsatiable desire to introduce the Ceremonies Discipline and Customs which they had seen in their Travels in opposition to what as good and wise Men as themselves had agreed on and Authority established here at home which cannot so reasonably be thought to proceed from the dictates of Conscience or the discretive judgment as a partial affection to what they had seen abroad and a peevish humor too much mixed with Pride as if they thought themselves undervalued if any others Instructions Judgment or Advice should be preferred before what they had there learn'd and brought over as the price of their banishment which is just like that foppish Humour our Gentlemen used to send their Sons to fetch out of France who going over before they had learned any thing at home at their return Ape the French-men in all their Fashions be they never so ridiculous and think it strange that every body else doth not admire those Vanities which cost them so dear and are all that they have to shew for their Father's Money and their own time and travel and upon which they do not a little value themselves And hither and to the Jesuit's industry and labours in sowing Tares amongst our Corn and not to any convictions of Evidence or conscientious adhesion to the Truth as some are willing to pretend for then Others here of at least as much Piety Learning Judgment and Conscience and of far more unprepossess'd unprejudic'd and unbiass'd understandings than themselves would have had the same apprehensions and Notion of the same things must we refer the first beginnings of our unhappy Schisms and Divisions 2. In the Year 1662. How happy an opportunity was there put into Mens hands to have reunited the Schisms then in being to the Church and so both piously and prudently at once to have put an end to their miseries and confusions both in Church and State and have buried the both in one Grave The King graciously gave a Commission for a review of the Common-Prayer and tho nothing could be proved unlawful in it as then it was yet the Commissioners for the Conformable Church consented to correct amend and add many things to make it more perfect if it were possible without exceptions but alas How do Men obstruct and lessen their own Happiness The Presbyterians and Independents the two most numerous Parties amongst the Dissenters did so idolize their mistaken Reputation that they chose to sacrifice the Peace and Unity of the Church to it and so for fear of lessening it would not submit to Episcopal Ordination Tho except some few of them what Ordination they had was Uncanonical irregular illegal schismatical and if not altogether invalid yet very doubtful and precaâ—ious the Church of God having for fifteen hundred Years never used nor allowed of the like nor would they renounce the Scotch Covenant tho a forreigne Oath and unlawful in it self and unlawfully imposed and taken and therefore the Obligation of it void to qualifie themselves to hold Benefices and so were displaced by the Law of the Land and tho some therefore censure them yet their greatest Crime was not that they did not conform but that they actually revived the Schism which might have been so opportunely either totally extinguish'd or at least diminish'd into a very inconsiderable one had they liv'd peaceably conform'd as far as they could gone to Church and exhorted others to do the like forborn Holding-forth and keeping Conventicles and schismatically Ordaining of others to perpetuate that Separation which they have these twenty eight years now almost maintained to mantain themselves for doing which since all pretenders to an Obligation in Conscience to Preach by virtue of a Divine inward Call without any lawful and allowed Ordination thereunto a settled place to exercise their Function in and a Charge regularly committed to them unless they are able to demonstrate and confirm that pretended supernatural Call by Miracles must be concluded to be either Enthusiasts or Impostors they can never be excused 3. Difference in Opinion And this being as usually it is accompany'd with Pride Self-conceit a malignant Temper a fiery blind Zeal a strife who shall be Greatest and endeavours to make a Schism and maintain it to serve an Interest gave occasion to many of the ancient Hereticks divers of whose Errors were in themselves consistent with Communion to separate from the Catholicks Thus to omit the rest the old Puritans the Novatians and the Meletians made a needless Schism but very mischievous to the Church And since small dissentions began about indifferent things through the Pride of some Covetousness and Ambition of others they have been agitated and encreased into greater and unhappy Schisms too many to be named Tho the Clergy of the Church of England do mutually allow to one another their several interpretations of the sense in which our Saviour is said in the Creed to have descended into Hell as being none of them contrary to the analogy of sound Faith and do permit to each other their enjoyment of their different Notion of Predestination and the Tenents depending on it as being all reconcileable to the Latitude of the Articles subscribed Yet the Calvinists being usually of a fierce Temper four Humour and made by Pride impatient of contradiction on the account of the latter in Holland severely persecuted the Remonstrants Upon as small a discrepancy did the Independents separate from the Presbyterians here in England and divers other Sects less numerous
of our Modern Presbyterians seeing themselves supplanted by the Independents have degenerated as the Episcopacy by Law Established and therefore would be little satisfactory to the Dissenters or available to the effecting a re-union I might add that their insisting only upon Power of Orders and Jurisdiction the two chief Prerogatives and distinguishing Characters of Bishops no otherways necessary to the discharge of the Ministerial Function in a Parochial Congregation than as by our Church prescribed and by our Laws allowed and commanded is an evidence that it is not conscience which troubles them but the old contention which shall be greatest that their desire of the multiplication of Bishops or rather the Consecration of Chorepiscopi to the number of the quondam Rural Deans must be supposed to proceed from hopes of their advancement at least to some of those many small Sees or from some worse design As for the words of the Disciplinarian we may see by them how far the Presbyterian Principles when asserted in their proper Latitude will extend and that the Prosecution of them would abolish not only Canonical Ordination that Spiritual and Paternal Oversight of both Pastors and Flock which would tend to the Peace Unity and Good of the whole but also the Episcopal Order it self which immediately succeeded to the Administration of the Apostles and hath continued in the Government of the Primitive and Universal Church of Christ in all Ages from their Deaths till the last Century As it would be a very bold attempt to presume to abolish remove or weaken the Primitive and Catholick Government of the Church by Episcopacy which was evidently at least Jure Apostolico Established in the first Ages of it to introduce the novel humane invention of Presbytery So it would not be a little imprudent and unsafe in regard of State Government since it would undermine the Monarchy by the very same means and methods as Popery viz. by depriving the King of his Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons by elevating the Presbytery above him by exalting every little Mas John to be a Popeling and investing him with the same absolute Authority in his Parish as the Pope of Rome challenges over the World by an exemption of the Presbyterian Teachers from the Civil Jurisdiction making their assembling of Synods to depend upon their own and not the Prince's pleasure and by the Preaching their Doctrins of the lawfulness and their obligations to propagate and defend their Religion and Kirk-Government by Arms will certainly by a gradual diminution of the King's Prerogative and Authority lessen his Power to that degree that whensoever they please to exert their democratical Principles and animate the Populace easily influenced under pretence of Conscience with the hopes of plunder into such an Insurrection as may reduce this Kingdom if not the three to the same or a worse condition than they were in in 1641. c. And thereby the Government of both Church and State be swallowed up in Anarchy and Confusion out of which if they become not a prey to some Puissant Foreign Enemy the vast expences of Blood and Treasure the Nation will be put to the many divisions and separate interests will be in it the contentions of the Schismaticks which shall be uppermost c. will hinder a re-establishment of Monarchy or a settlement of any form of Government more perfect than that which is most agreeable to the Presbyterian and Independent Discipline of a Democracy which amongst so fickle and unconstant People must needs be short-liv'd and during its continuance by reason of its own proper inconveniencies and inherent defects is but a degree above confusion III. The Schism which the Dissenters have made from the Church of England whatsoever may be pretended was not really made upon the account of any thing contained in our Liturgy any Ceremonies in use in our Publick Worship or any subscriptions enjoyn'd by our Laws as in themselves contrary to their Judgments in case of Conscience as appears because 1st None of the Dissenters have hitherto with any cogent Arguments proved any of them unlawful and therefore can have no reasonable cause or lawful Warrant to either make or continue a Schism if it be said They doubt of the lawfulness of some of them I answer That is not enough to excuse the Schism which unless it be to avoid the doing of that which is evidently sinful is always unlawful and criminal The Obligations to Order Peace Unity Charity and Communion with the Church of Christ to obedience to our Ecclesiastical Superiours their Constitutions and Canons and to our Civil Governors and their legal establishments in indifferent things and the circumstantials of Religion are derived from Divine Authority of an Eternal Nature and so far binding as not to admit of a Relaxation unless plain and notorious sin be positively commanded for otherwise to separate would be both to omit a certain duty for fear of being guilty of a possible mistake and to commit an evident and aggravated sin of many pernicious consequences to avoid the transgression of a single Precept either not existent or at least not evident Doubts under pretence of Conscience are usually made to shroud a perverse disobedient humour or some sinister design not willing to appear above-board Thus a Man being called to give an evidence which he knows will endanger his Friends Interest Liberty or Life not willing either to damnifie him or perjure himself as a mean expedient to prevent both he pretends that he did not hear the words or that he doth not remember them So here the Dissenter not being able to prove any thing contained in our Liturgy or the innocent and decent gestures of standing and kneeling observed in the use of it for nothing else is enjoyned the Congregation in our Publick Worship unlawful nor willing to own the true causes of his Schism pretends he doubts but the unhappiness of it is that in the former case the answer doth not avoid the perjury nor in the latter the doubts take away the Hypocrisie and guilt of Schism and are no more than mere evasions for there is nothing but hath or may be doubted or at least be pretended so to be and if every such pretence should be allowed nothing can be commanded nor no order decency or uniformity observed 2. The greatest part by far of the Dissenters are such as never examined or seriously considered our Liturgy Articles Rites Ceremonies Constitutions or Customs or any other of their Teachers pretences for their separation a considerable number of them are such as never saw nor heard them and are not qualified either to read or understand them and scarce any of them can say in their own defence that they have sought any satisfaction at home by reading impartially such Treatises as the Divines of our Church have written to explain defend and vindicate them or abroad from the several Pastors under whose care and charge Providence and the
Laws of the Land have placed them and which they might and ought if any doubts and scruples had arose in their minds to have had recourse to and consulted And indeed the frequenters of Consenticles consisting of Petty-coat Proselytes the vulgar sort of Men who are illiterate ignorant and unstable and some few Men of better quality that sometimes grace those Meetings with a fair out-side and the attendance of a Coach and Lacquey whose infirmities and defects made it necessary or convenient for them to give up themselves fortunes and Religions to the conduct and choice of their Wives for all such Persons it is more fit and necessary to be well instructed in the Church Catechism by their own proper Pastors than to take upon them to judge of or determine controversies in Religion of which they are no more qualified to be Judges than blind Men of colours So that being no competent Judges of such matters they can have no right to plead that the conviction of their judgments that such and such things in our Church are unlawful is the cause of their separation because it presupposes them to have judged and determined in a case in which no Wise Man much less any Church or Synod ever allowed them to have any right so to do But the truth is some suck in Fanaticism with their Mothers Milk are initiated with the Principles of it in their Infancy continue under the prejudices of that education and inherit their Parents Schism and have no more reason for it than the ignorant Papists Jews and Mahometans have for their Religions Some are Dissenters upon Worldly accompts and for temporal advantages as the promotion and encrease of Trade gaining of Custom advance of Fortune conveniencies of Marriage pleasing of Relations friendship of Favourites c. Others are Persons of a fickle and unstable temper affect novelties and as if the Religion of our Parents Age and our Infancy as well as their Houses and our last Years Clothes were out of fashion and unsuitable for us think to recommend their judgments to the World by their singularity and new Choice and alledge the Apostles Precept of proving all things for their justification Others being Persons of strong passions but weak judgments are of a ductile temper and wrought upon by the whining tone affected cant fustian Language stuff and unintelligible Phrases of their Holders forth not discerning that all these are but the designed artifices and cunning craft whereby they lye in wait to deceive sacrifice to their own nets and enhaunse their Glory by leading silly Women Captive Others well inclin'd without any persuasion of the unlawfulness of any thing in our Church's Doctrin Discipline or Constitutions or so much as doubting of it hearing these Venders of the Geneva Discipline make such large boasts of more than ordinary purity of Worship strictness of Discipline and holiness of life as if they were entail'd upon that Sect since so Pharisaical a confidence without something to support it would be monstrous and absurd are apt to think that some parts of them are true and not aware that all this is done to draw the more Customers together and get the better Market for their spiritual Wares blindly give up themselves by a Faith more implicite and inexcusable than that in the Romish Church to be taught and guided by them Thus ordinary People being Men of great inadvertency and small judgment become their cheap and easie prey and as for the richer sort whose Wealth may be useful to the supporting of the cause they usually imitate the Method of the first deceiver and so make their Addresses that the Men are made Disciples by the mediation and assistance of their Wives I might add hereunto the evil arts those designing Persons use to decry others to recommend themselves such are their traducing both Persons and Things the envious detractions and calumnies the unjust aspersions and slanders which they used to insinuate and spread abroad amongst their hearers with a purpose to put them out of conceit with and make them disaffected to the Government of both Church and State in general and the Persons of our Governors and Clergy in particular hence arose that malice censoriousness want of Christian Charity and bitterness of Spirit which they are leaven'd withal more than and above other Men this makes them turbulent and unquiet disobedient to the Government and like S. J. strugling with it contriving caballing and plotting against it factious in the State Schismatical in the Church proud and peevish in their dispositions morose unsociable and unneighbourly to all but themselves and banishes that Christian Charity and Brotherly Kindness which would qualifie them more for a re-union with our Church and conduce more to it than our abolishing all our Rites Ceremonies Church constitutions and Customs can or ever will do for it is not any evil in them or any of them but the evil designs of Men that caused these unchristian breaches and divisions 3. If the Dissenters had really made their Schism upon the accompt of Conscience the same Principles of Conscience would have influenc'd their other actions as well as it and they would certainly have behaved themselves very differently from what they have done and have carried themselves humbly modestly quietly and obediently to the Monarchy as God's Ordinance as the Primitive Christians did to even the Heathen Emperors Pro-consuls and Governors But alass we find them of a quite contrary temper to omit what Men of the same Principles have done in Germany France Bohemia Holland Switzerland Geneva c. The Murmurings Tumults Covenanting Conspiracy Insurrection and open Rebellion of the Scots against King Charles I. and their Invasion of England being promoted both by the Instruments of Cardinal Richelieu who aimed at furthering the French Kings designs against the Hugonots and Flanders by diverting King Charles's Forces and Attempts design'd against France and by the Missionary Jesuits who to ruine the Church of England exclaimed against the King and his Government the Archbishop and evil Counsellors Arbitrary Power and Popery c. blew the coals fomented differences pretended grievances aggravated miscarriages exasperated Parties both here and there and excited the Fanatick Party here to encourage their Brethren in Scotland first by secret and then open assurances of their assistance to invade this Kingdom cannot be imputed to the obligations of their Consciences unless the Cardinal and Jesuits are allowed the Guides and Directors of them The two several open Rebellions raised in Scotland against King Charles II. the Fanatick Plot against his Life here the continued carriage of the Dissenters in general and of the Presbyterian Party tin particular since his Restauration their malicious and bitter Speeches against him and his Government in ordinary conversation and discourses the slanderous Libels railing Pamphlets written and dispersed by them their intriguing caballing and plotting their pragmatical and indirect interposing in all Publick Elections Places and Offices their perverse