how was he then that auspicious mercifull and benign Prince the Prince of peace and the son of him that is the father of mercies in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed And for the same reason I affirm that all the declaimers of the separation whose lungs are employed in blowing the coals of strife and in dividing friends relations and countrymen from one another cannot possibly pretend a mission from heaven for what they doe unless they can first prove that the terms of communion in the church of England are unlawfull to be submitted to nay that they are utterly inconsistent with salvation but when they offer no manner of reason for so destructive a schism so pernicious to our peace at home and to our power and interest abroad but onely tell us with a splay mouth and a ridiculous tone that they cannot in conscience that is they will not comply for this reason is infinite and therefore ought not to be allowed without a more particular and satisfactory plea that such a thing is superstitious they cannot tell why and that they are for greater purity and greater edification that is for infinite schism separation and confusion for noise and non-sense and eternal dashing of one disagreeing party against another as if the breach of charity the destruction of good order and the subversion of government were the true methods of edification that is as if building up and pulling down were the same or as if they that have the meanest parts the least acquired learning the most confused sentiments and the most unintelligible notions which is plainly the case of the Nonconformists at this day were the best qualified for instructing the people or as if they that hate the government and persecute all that love it with a virulence not to be equall'd by any but themselves were fit to be entrusted with the doctrine of obedience and were to be permitted in a christian common wealth to have the conduct and governance of souls that have a civil capacity as well as a sacred and are obliged for God's sake to be subject to every lawfull ordiance of man and certainly either nothing is lawfull in this world or else humane impositions and Episcopal government are so when they are found by the experience of so many ages to be either of absolute necessity to the publick peace which is the case of the former or at least the best fitted to establish and secure it which is the true pinch of the controversie as to the latter Quis Coelum Terrae non misceat mare Coelo Or may it not be consistent even with the meekness of a Christian spirit to call for fire from heaven upon such bold miscreants that pretend a commission from it to unhinge the world and to set all manking together by the ears onely for the sake of two or three signisicant ceremonies and because they are significant that is because they tend to that which they plead so much for and talk so loudly concerning that is edification for otherwise what they signifie I cannot imagine and I entreat some of them to tell me And yet if these things were abated it is not to be hoped without a severe prosecution of the penal laws that ever the separation will cease together with them which under the disguise of religion is indeed nothing else but a Republican faction which the enemies of monarchy will be sure to cherish so long as they can or dare so that it is observable though they have been driven fourty times from one station to another and though they know not where to fix to entrench themselves safely against the assaults of truth though the pleas alter almost with the seasons of the year and with the returns of the day yet the separation it self continues still the same or hath rather been every day more obstinate and inveterate than the other till the laws began to rouse their drowsie heads and shew that they were not merely a dead and lifeless letter which it is natural for a Phanatick to despise Nay though there were not as there is in the bottom of Phanaticism a Republican design yet what terms of accommodation can possibly be expected when there are so many whose onely trade is schism and who get the very bread they eat by keeping up their party whose kitchins must be cold and bellies empty whenever that fatal day shall overtake them in which the Conventicles are not full and reeking with the unnatural steams of separation However such is the wise temperament and constitution of the church of England that it hath left the Presbyters no reason to complain inasmuch as they are not obliged by any Canon or Ecclesiastical sanction to which themselves have not given their free and full assent in convocation by their representatives at least if not in their own persons which is exactly the same sort of assent which the free subjects and free-holders of England give to those laws which are enacted in Parliament their consent being included in that of their Knight or Burgess and the major part of the representatives including the whole as reason and custome do require in all assemblies of this nature is at the same time interpreted as the act of the commons of England who are represented in the whole assembly But it is easie to see by the disorders that frequently happen in so small a number what confusion it would make if all the people or the free-holders of England were actually to have a vote in the passing of every law as by the disturbances which often-times happen in the Livery which is a smaller body in the Guild-hall of London it is obvious to any man at the first sight how much more intolerable the mischief would be if all the freemen were admitted to a right of suffrage from whence to avoid those confusions they are now excluded And the same tumults and disorders would no question happen if all the Clergy-men in England being in both orders were admitted to a liberty of voting in the convocation for Clergy-men have passions and designs too as well as other men and being supposed by their function to be of the wiser and learneder sort this naturally makes every man the more zealous to betray his ignorance when he cannot shew his wit or understanding he will be sure to make up in noise and bustle what he wants in knowledge and it will always happen in this case that the Bishops and the wisest and best men will be born down with the crowd of the inferiour Clergy who being men oftentimes of little maintenance and as little parts will as naturally comply and side with the humour of the people as it is natural for the people themselves in all nations as often as they can or dare to affront their governours and disobey the laws which however just and equitable in themselves and however well tempered and proportioned to the happiness of those
A SERMON PREACHED Before Sir P. W. Anno 1681. WITH ADDITIONS To which are annexed Three Digressional Exercitations I. Concerning the true Time of our Saviour's Passover II. Concerning the prohibition of the Hebrew Canon to the ancient Jews III. Concerning the Jewish Tetragrammaton and the Pythagorick Tetractys By JOHN TVRNER Late Fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1684. A SERMON Preached before Sr Patience Ward UPON THE Last SVNDAY of His MAYORALTY Anno 1681. With ADDITIONS By John Turner late Fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. SUMMA PRIVILEGII Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical 1640. Artic. 8. WHereas the Preaching of order and decency according to St. Paul ' s rule doth conduce to edification it is required that all Preachers as well beneficed men as others shall positively and plainly preach and instruct the people in their publick Sermons twice in the year at least that the Rites and Ceremonies now established in the Church of England are lawfull and commendable and that they the said people and others ought to conform themselves in their practice to all the said Rites and Ceremonies and that the people and others ought willingly to submit themselves unto the authority and government of the Church as it is now established under the King's Majesty And if any Preacher shall neglect or refuse to doe according to this Canon let him be suspended by his Ordinary during the time of his refusal or wilfull forbearance to doe thereafter TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON Dean of the CHAPEL ROYAL AND One of His Majestie 's most Honourable Privy Council May it please Your Lordship WHen the following Sermon was preached which is now a full twelve-month ago and as much as since the latter end of October it made so great a noise about the Town and was the occasion of so loud a cry against me from a dâ—sloyal and disaffected party that I was forced immediately to put it to the Press not out of any vain opinion which I had of my performance which as it was but mean in it self so it could not be well expected that it should be better considering the shortâ—ess of the time which was spent in the composing but for my own just and necessary vindication that the world might see and be satisfied what it was that had opened the mouth of Calumny and Detraction so wide and Your Lordship having received information that there was a design to make my Sermon publick which Iacknowledge I ought not to have done without Your Lordship's good leave by whose commission and authority it was preached I was commanded to deliver up my Notes to be perused by Your Lordship before they went to the Press but it so happening that they were then actually in it before that order came and the first sheet having been printed off all the possibility of Obedience that was left me was to recall my Papers from the Press and lay them at Your Lordship's feet as they were torn in pieces by the Printer and in a condition very much ashamed to make their appearance before You. Your Lordship was sensible of the confusion my Papers as well as my self were in and would not suffer them to blush in your presence but was pleas'd to dismiss me in a most obliging manner for which unexpected goodness when I came so apprehensive as I was of a less favourable usage I am bound to pay you my everlasting thanks and to command me further not without expressing some trouble at the incivility and indiscretion of Sir P. W. which was indeed an affront to Your Lordship and the whole Clergy of the three Kingdoms in my person to let you see the Papers when they were printed I came away as I had reason from Whitehall where I had the honour to pay my duty to Your Lordship then going to the Council not onely well satisfied but very much transported with so obliging an answer and having now a Licence from your self as well as from the Eighth of the Ecclesiastical Canons made and set forth by a Convocation of the two Provinces in 1640. whereby we are obliged twice every year to preach upon the Subject of Decency and Order and whatsoever may be preached may be printed also if occasion so require I had now a double encouragement to go on with the Impression and accordingly I did go on If Your Lordship shall demand of me as it is very natural for you to doe what was the reason of its publication being so long delayed all the answer I can make is that it was so far was I at first from designing it for the Press had I not been provoked to it by the clamours of the worst of men as well as encourag'd to stand up in my own defence by such as were friends to the Government and by consequence to me I say as it was I found it to be a very imperfect and unfinish'd piece and such as had reason to apprehend the censures of its friends as well as enemies therefore I presumed to take the liberty not to alter any thing which I had spoken but onely to add so much to it as might make a just disquisition upon the Subject and yet if I had taken a liberty of making alterations so it had been onely in the expression not the sense it would have been such a liberty as would have been vouched by the best examples that antiquity affords Pliny as himself confesses in his Epistles did so by his Panegyrick to the Emperour Trajan and before him that great Master as well of thought as expression did the same by his Oration in defence of Milo and not to say any thing of the Verrine Orations and the invectives against Catiline it is very reasonable to believe that the Philippicks instead of being burnt as Anthony would have had them have been transmitted to Posterity with an improvement of incens'd eloquence and Ciceronian rage There is one thing indeed which I know not whether I ought to mention or no which did receive some little alteration if the omission of a Line or two for it was no more may be called by that name and that is that upon occasion of discourse concerning the persecution still raging in the Territories of the French King I did speak of his Majesty out of the zeal I had for the Protestant Religion and being under no tie of obedience to a foreign Prince but onely of respect to his Character if he do worthily sustain it with so much sharpness and Satyr comparing his Persecution to that of Nero Maximine or Dioclesian which was the very thing and the onely thing that was omitted that there were persons
had been nothing else would have been sufficient in the way of instance besides what I have urged from the nature and necessity of the thing it self to prove that humane institutions for the better ordering and government of religious duties are not onely lawfull in themselves but that they ought to be obeyed by us if there be no particular reason from the quality of the thing enjoyned to the contrary as they were by Christ who gave in this an example of obedience and we cannot be his Disciples if we do not follow it But as it was not proper in a discourse that was intended to have the shape and appearance of a Sermon to launch out into so large a Philological disquisition of which there are so very few of those that hear Sermons that can be supposed to be competent Judges so indeed it was needless to give a particular instance when our Saviour's communion with the Jewish Church during the whole time of his sojourning among men is it self an aggregate of a thousand arguments to prove the lawfulness of humane impositions for without such impositions there can be no communion any more than there can be a City or Commonwealth without Laws or a society without some rules and orders to govern it self by the submitting to which rules is that in which the very being of a society consists and the breaking of those measures by an universal disobedience is a disparking the society a pulling down the pale and barrier of the body politick and a letting all things loose into the state of nature that is into a state of tumult confusion and disorder For the other Diatriba upon the Shem Hameporash as the Rabbins call it or the Four lettered name of God I cannot say that it came in so well but rather must acknowledge that it was too slight an occasion which was taken hold of to entertain the Reader 's curiosity upon it but as it happens in conversation if a man leave the company but for half a minute he shall find oftentimes the discourse as much altered when he returns again as if he had staid away a thousand years or as if it were another company into which he was now fallen so it will always be in writing likewise if a man do not keep a guard upon his thoughts but allow his fancy a liberty of ranging which it will easily do in a small space of time over things at an infinite distance from one another However an essay of this nature considered by it self though it will not contribute any thing to the use of common life yet it cannot be unpleasant to any man to know for certain what the true pronunciation of that peculiar name of God was by which he is pleased to signalize and distinguish himself in an especial manner from all created and dependent beings that are called Gods but are not what they are called that name whose true and genuine pronunciation hath been lost for so long a succession of ages for neither Josephus nor Philo Judaeus were acquainted with it and the Jewish Rabbins are generally agreed which discovers how ignorant they are themselves and how unconscionably given to impose upon others that it was known onely to the High-Priest and never pronounced by him neither but onely once a year in the most holy place when he brought his piaculary censer within the vail upon the solemn day of expiation For I have not onely solidly demonstrated what the true pronunciation of this name was but I have proved that there were other names of God in Scripture that were equally sacred though it is true they are owing to the same root from whence this is derived and that it was not onely known among the Jews themselves but that also the heathen nations were acquainted with it for Rabshekah in the sacred volume mentions it expresly and Philo Byblius the translatour of Sanchuniathon a very ancient writer of the Phoenician story who lived in the interval of the Judges hath made it so far from being any secret that he hath long ago divulged it to the whole learned World If Your Lordship shall demand of me what it was that moved me having suffered them to lie asleep so long to publish these papers just at this nick of time there are two things which I presume to offer as the reasons why I took this opportunity after so long a silence to let them come abroad and speak for themselves and for the Church of England which they pretend to maintain as well as for my self the writer of them who having suffered so much upon their account they are bound in justice to doe me what right they can which I imagine they will sufficiently do by adventuring abroad and putting themselves upon a fair and publick tryal One thing that moved me to publish them at this time was that I thought they would be as much or rather more seasonable at this juncture than at that in which they were written and for this I had not onely mine own opinion but as I may interpret it Your Lordship 's also together with the concurring suffrage of all those reverend learned and judicious persons who are now employed as I have been informed by the particular appointment and direction of Your Lordship whose paternal care suffers no possible expedient to be unattempted to procure the peace and unity of this Church to satisfie the dissenters as many of them as act upon a principle of conscience without design in all the pretended matters of difference between us and to clear up the misty Atmosphere of religious doubt which hath been raised by zeal but is not yet dispelled for want of knowledge a design worthy of so great a Prelate so truly pious so profoundly wise so indefatigably good and suitable to the nobleness of so large a mind that hath joyned so much personal honour and so much honour of inheritance together And though in the midst of so many great performances in which the strength eloquence and prudence of the writers maintain an equal combat with each other I cannot hope that mine will doe any thing which is not effectually done by some of theirs yet I thought it my duty upon this occasion not to be wanting to the common cause and rather to betray though I hope there is no danger of that my want of skill or ability to maintain it as it ought to be maintained than of affection to serve it to the utmost of my power If I have been so fortunate to stumble upon any thing which hath not been thought of or considered by some of them it is a new mite cast into the treasury of the Temple and ought to be accepted courteously not for its own weight but for the chearfulness and good intention wherewith it is offered without which the rich Hecatomb is not of so much value as the poor man's Turtle-dove or his handfull of flower If I agree with them in any thing as
play and from him no favour or if instead of Satyr he have a mind to be more innocently wity let him but mix a little seriousness with his wit and let that seriousness be such as is not dull and then I promise him like Hippocrates his twins a very old comparison but it will be older before it is quite out of date we will be wonderfull friends in the midst of the fray and we will laugh and cry together and I will follow him with a complement at the same time when I make a pass at the very heart of his cause as the Retiarii in the Roman Theatres were used to doe by their Antagonists the Mirmillones who had a fish graven or painted upon their shield Piscem peto Non te peto Quid me fugis Galle But I had much rather that they whoever they are that shall think it for their own credit for otherwise I am sure they will hardly doe it for the interest of their cause to concern themselves with such an unfledg'd authour whom they may catch with chaff as well as bird-lime as they please themselves I say I had much rather that they would betake themselves to a serious and close way of writing which notwithstanding all the sharpness of the following discourse which to be sure will be represented much greater than it is I have very carefully observed in it neither is there any thing which I should more hate in my self or more despise in another than for a man to lose his argument in an impertinent wilderness either of wit or anger Therefore if any of that party be dissatisfied or hath a mind to pretend that he is so with what I have said already upon the three following questions in which all the matters in difference are contained First Concerning Episcopal Government Secondly Concerning humane impositions in religious matters in the general and Thirdly Concerning the particular impositions that are the occasion or pretence of Separation from the Church of England Let him then enter the lists as soon as he pleases and I promise Your Lordship I will not fail to answer him in defence of the establish'd Religion and for the quieting the minds of his Majestie 's good subjects against either the tricks or the mistakes of inconsiderate or designing men not that I pretend to be able to say much more upon these subjects than I have done already but some men will not be convinced by any thing at the first hearing let it be never so plain but they must have it over and over in other words and in a new appearance till by degrees the truth is rendred so familiar to them as to subdue the prejudices they have imbibed against it or the mistake so palpable that obstinacy begins to blush and be ashamed And the better to prevent all artifice and cant which do but perplex the cause and make all controversies endless and cheat the world of their money and their time to prevent all squabbling about authorities which is an incompetent way of arguing in this case because men that are not able to search into these things themselves will be sure to believe the quotations of their own side whether true of false or whether they be rightly applied or not For this reason I propose that we lay all arguments but those of nature aside For if it be found upon principles that are universally acknowledged and such as make their appeal to every common understanding that Episcopacy that is a superiority on the one hand and a dependence on the other is the most perfect form of Government both in Church and State or indeed that there can be no lasting government without it that in the Church it secures the greatest reverence to the Clergy by which they are the better enabled to influence the people and by consequence to answer the end of their institution and separation to the ministerial office if it give the greatest incouragement to learning if it strengthen the hands of discipline as well with respect to the inferiour Clergy as the Layety and if this be a natural means to secure the publick peace then here is all that can be expected to justifie this form of government in the Church and though the testimonies of antiquity may receive strength and advantage from the nature of things which is the onely true immutable antiquity to which we must appeal yet those very testimonies let them be never so numerous unanimous and positive when they have nature against them what are they but so many confessions of ignorance or design of want of honesty or want of skill So also in the second enquiry if it shall be found that humane impositions in religious matters are of absolute and indispensable necessity for the keeping any ecclesiastical society together for the preservation of peace and unity among men if it follow plainly from the consideration of humane nature and humane passions as well as from the experience of our own and former times that without such impositions we must crumble into sects as numerous as the motes that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that infinity of crowding stars by which the Celestial Galaxy is adorned this is abundantly sufficient from the necessity of such humane institutions to justifie their lawfulness and to prove their obligation and it is so far from being true that there can be no external circumstance of religious worship appointed and ordained by men which is not expresly revealed and set down in some place or other of the New Testament that if on the contrary our Saviour and his Apostles had expresly told us that we must not so much as move an hand or a foot in any religious assembly or affair without express licence and authority from them which they have no where done and yet at the same time had not adjusted the particular instances of our behaviour in these matters which they have not done neither all the inference that could have been made from this would be that we must not worship God at all which is a very odd sort of divine revelatition Besides that nothing can be more foolish than to perswade to charity to talk perpetually of peace and love and such like luscious and delicious things onely to make our mouths water while at the same time we are deny'd the necessary means of securing so desirable blessings to our selves It would be true at this rate not onely in the event but in the design too that our Saviour came not to bring peace but a sword and the end of his coming if he had any at all being onely to set the world together by the ears as it must be if he deny the civil or ecclesiastical magistrate a power of determining those indifferent matters which he hath not any where determined himself this would be a plain argument that he was a gross impostour instead of being
generous ambition and Mr. Hobs saith somewhere excellently well nisi qui laudem amant pauci faciunt laudabilia so we may say with equal truth nisi qui ambiunt honores pauci faciunt quae sunt honoribus digna The Scripture it self bids us look to the recompence of reward and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling and it is certain that no man will or can doe any thing with a steady purpose of mind wherein he does not propose some interest to himself The prospect of such advantages in future makes a man obedient as well as industrious for the present and by setting an example of submission to his superiours and of diligence in his station and emploiment he is in both respects an instrument of great honour and great service to the Church he is in the ready way to make a wise and excellent person and will be the more readily obeyed when he comes to govern for having shewed an example of obedience before But if there were not such honours and advantages to be met with in the Clergy then there would certainly these two notoririous inconveniences follow first that the governours of the church would lose very much of their authority and power which they cannot do without prejudice to the government it self and secondly that the want of due encouragement would produce in the inferiour Clergy a scorbutick idleness and inactivity a want of due concern either for the peace of the Church or for the honour of it it would subject them to the humours of the people from whose kindness they might in this case expect as great or greater secular advantages than they could propose to themselves in any other course so that instead of being the instruments of obedience they would by this means become the speaking trumpets of faction and so it was seen in the late disorderly times when the Episcopacy was demolisht and the dignitary lands were all of them confiscate men preach'd up rebellion for lecture contributions and I doubt not but many of them acted much against their consciences for no other reason but to please the rabble It is an old saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not to be denied but there are some instances of very gallant men to be found in the reformed churches abroad and that too where they have not the benefit of episcopal government but I dare appeal to the dissenters themselves if they will speak their consciences whether ever there was so plentifull an harvest of wise and excellently learned men as are to be found at this day among the Clergy of the church of England and whether among themselves there be any such thing as learning to be met with whether both city and country are not now better furnished than in the late times with excellent preachers and men that can speak sense which is more than they can doe or whether the Universities are not better stored with men of great attainments on the one hand and great hopes on the other than in the days when humane learning and that abominable idol carnal reason were for the most part banish'd with the King and the Bishops the reason of which cannot possibly be referred to any other cause but onely the more ingenuous Principles that are now abroad and the greater encouragements men have now before them to study and take pains and deserve well of the world This is certain that the wisedom of Princes hath always been so sensible of the usefulness of ecclesiasticks to the service of the publick for the security honour and safety of their governments for the composing and calming the minds of their people into a peaceable and obedient temper that they have thought no honours and advantages too great to bestow upon them as a reward of their merit and to make their authority still greater in the eyes of the people and it was very wisely provided by our ancestours in such a government as this is where the people have so great a share in the making of those laws by which they are afterwards to be obliged that the Bishops should have a place allotted them in Parliament as well as the nobility or the commons have and that for their greater honour and to give them a right of suffrage in the house of Lords they should have Baronies annext to their respective sees For where the people have so great an interest in the enacting of their own laws there if the Clergy be totally excluded if there be none admitted into the assembly to look after the interest of the ecclesiastical state it will most certainly and unavoidably come to pass that by the envy or the ill designs of men the Clergy will be deprest and trampled on at some time or other which it can never be without detriment to the state upon supposition that they are at all advantagious or serviceable to it Nay if it be granted that they are of any use it must be granted likewise that they are the most usefull persons that do or can belong to a society and therefore ought to be the most highly honoured and esteemed for what greater blessing can there be than peace or what greater plague or calamity can befall a nation than to be embroiled in sedition enflamed with strife raging with opposite and eager passions what better instruments can there be in any state or kingdom than they whose business and whose study it is to exhort to peace and charity and obedience to submission to the government and love to one another Certainly if the Lawyers get so much and are so highly caressed and rewarded sometimes for ending controversies and sometimes for making them endless sometimes for setting men together by the ears and at others for parting the fray to the disadvantage of the true pretender the Divines are much more worthy to be honoured and rewarded whose business it is to prevent all strife and contention and who have perhaps determined as many controversies in a cheap and amicable way at home as ever the other decided at the bar to the ruine sometimes of both the parties concerned and always to the signal detriment and disadvantage of one I do not speak this to disparage or undervalue the learned Gentlemen of the long robe whose profession I acknowledge in every state to be not onely usefull but necessary to its peace and welfare so far as it is not abused by ill men or by tedious delays and by traversing of courts and actions to the infinite vexation and oppression of the subject But I say the prevention of all strife is a much more noble excellent and usefull thing than the deciding of controversies after they are actually begun as it is better to prevent an ague by a wholesome diet or by a regular course of life or by preventive medicaments before hand than to remove the fit or by degrees perhaps the disease it self by many repeated doses of the Jesuites powder which
so it is to be feared that in not many more the animosities between a Calvinist and whoever differs from him being irreconcileable and everlasting it will prâ—ve the ruin of that once powerfull but now declining State Neither was there any thing in the late unhappy times next to the Title of an incomparable Prince to whom the Sceptre of these Kingdoms did of right belong and the Affections of a loyal Party which all the republican Cruelties were not able to extinguish that contributed so much to put a period to the Usurpation which was never establish'd upon any certain bottom as the bandying of the several Factions against one another which made it both necessary for the Usurpers to support their power by the Sword and that Sword it self not being all of it of the same metal and the Army that was to wield it being it self canton'd into Sects and Factions they began at length not to understand one anothers language but were forced to leave working any longer and to desist from building that Babel of Religion cemented with bloud instead of mortar which is inconsistent with the quiet of the Earth and by which men in vain expect to climbe to Heaven It is a prodigious thing for a man to consider what irreconcileable feuds the smallest differences in Religion have created and still the smaller those differences are the higher usually are those animosities that are produced by them as if it were the nature and genius of mankind to make up in passion what they want in reason as the Turks and Persians though agreeing in all other parts of the Maâ—ometan Superstition yet about a very small Punctilio they are at mortal jars with one another and being so near neighbours as they are they never want an opportunity of expressing their resentments by the frequent and bloudy Wars betwixt those two formidable Empires The Calvinists pursue the Lutherans and Arminians who on their own parts are not wanting to retaliate the kindness with every whit as great if not greater hatred than those who do toto coelo errare the Popish I mean the Mahometan and the Pagan World nay so apt are men to fall out with one another that the most inconsiderable niceties of difference that can be conceived when they are used as marks of distinction when men shall obstinately persist in such discriminations and when they shall place an opinion or affectation in them will produce in them a dislike and aversation for one another and let the difference be never so small yet it will alwaies be true to the World's end that Birds of a feather will flock together so many distinctions as there are bating those distinctions which Trade and Functions and the Necessities of humane life have made for the mutual support and maintenance of each other so many several Parties and Factions you shall have in that Common-wealth or Kingdom where those distinctions are found Though in this case it will alwaies happen that the smaller Fishes will associate and unite together against the Leviathan or prevailing Party that overballances the rest but when that King of the Waters is destroy'd they will then begin to prey upon one another and contend which of them shall ingross the Dominion of the Seas which is the case of all the Republican Factions against the Church of England at this day though as well reason as former sad experience may instruct us when they have obtained their end if ever they do obtain it which God forbid what miserable work they will make of it among themselves It is to be confess'd indeed that there are abroad very great heats and contentions to be found which are not of such dangerous consequence to the publick Peace such as are those feuds which will never be extinguish'd betwixt the Seculars and the Regulars and betwixt the regular Fraternities with one another and I believe there are but very few monastick Societies will be found that are at peace within themselves of which and of the causes of it which I have well considered I could say more if it would not be a digression but whether it be that common obedience which they pay their Holy Father the Pope which keeps them in somewhat better order or that being men of a single life not encumbred with any secular interest or concern their animosities cannot so easily embroile the State as those who have a greater interest in it and who may with a better countenance pursue secular designs than they can doe or whether it be that the Laiety think it not worth their while any further than it is matter of common entertainment and discourse to take any part in the quarrels of Beadesmen and of Beggars or whether it be that their contentions are not of such a popular nature as to have an influence upon any but themselves who make them or that the perpetual austerities of their respective rules which are a constant emploiment to them hinder them from being capable of prosecuting any dangerous design with that address and diligence which is requisite to its success or that all the heat of these contentions is spent by men that know better how to use their tongues than swords in complaints to the Pope and in writing against and censuring one another or lastly whether it be that their way of life in the retirement of their cloysters and in the little formalitie of their cells and convents renders them unexperienc'd in affairs listless and unactive in business and unfit to doe any great good or mischief in the World or whatever the true reason be there is no question but they are found by long experience by giving an example of poverty and contentment and by the reputation of their sanctity and holyness of life to be rather an advantage than detriment to the places where they are suffered and they make sufficient amends for their intestine divisions by their being united together in the Papal Interest and in the support of the Romish Tyranny over the Consciences of men But let the reason be what it will it is certain that no reason can justifie the lawfullness of separate and independent Congregations in a Christian Commonwealth or Kingdome which are in their own nature and have been found so by experience to be so destructive to the welfare and happiness of the World which are so big with inconveniences not to be foreseen till they are felt which are surrounded on every side with infinite and unspeakable dangers to which no possible remedy can be apply'd but by the removal of their necessary cause and by destroying the Independencie it self that I make no scruple to pronounce it as a self-evident Maxim that an aggregate of separate and disunited Congregations unaccountable to one another or to any superior temporal Head invested with a power of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Censure is contrary to the Law of Nature destructive of the Peace of the World and of the design of Christianity
to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own desence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or distrubance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authority that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the supersluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine Service which may very well be done without any Schism or Separation from the body of the Church abroad either on the one part or the other Yet for private men to separate from the National Establishment upon pretence that the Ceremonies are too burthensome or too many is manifestly unlawfull The reason is because this will be lyable to the same Inconveniences to which a separation upon pretence of greater Purity is expos'd and in both cases if every private man shall be allow'd to judge for himself and to proceed to a Separation in pursuance of that judgment so infinite are the humours the sancies the prejudices the perversities of some men so fond are they of Novelty and Change so apt to controul Authority and so desirous to be govern'd only by their own Measures that there can be no lasting Establishment in the World but the Discipline of the Church will be alwaies reeling like a Drunken Man and driven to and fro like a Wave of the Sea by every Capricious wind of Innovation We will suppose for the present in favour of the Dissenters because they cannot prove it that there are too many Ceremonies in our Church yet I presume it will be granted that there are not above four or five or half a dozen too many or if you will to make it a plump number and to put the Objection into better shape let them be half a score which I believe upon an exact computation will go a great way in the Ceremonies of the Church of England and let all these be imposed as indispensable conditions of Communion 'T is pretty severe I confess to lay so great a stress upon Indifferent Matters but yet certainly no man in his wits will ever pretend that this is such an intollerable burthen as that he must needs separate rather than comply but if there be any that are so hardy to do it though I will not discommend them for their courage a vertue of which in this contentious Age we have a great deal of need yet in my opinion they deserve rather to be soundly Laught at than seriously Confuted What hath been said of the Churches Power in retrenching the number of her Ceremonies the same is likewise true as to the Ceremonies themselves that they may from time to time be altered and changed for others in their stead by the Authority of the Church as shall seem most Expedient to that publique Wisdome for the great Purpose of Edification but for every private person to challenge this Right to himself is unlawfull because liable to the same inconveniences with separating under colour of Ceremonious Superfluities or of purer Ordinances and purer Ordinances and purer Worship which are therefore justly to be suspected to proceed out of a bad design because they never can have any end Saint Paul in several places of his Epistles expresses great tenderness for the infirmity of the weak Brother but yet if the Instances of such his condescention be examined they will be sound to be of a quite different nature from those which make up the pretences of our daies as consisting first in the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which as looking like a participation of the table of Devils and as being expresly prohibited by a
me or any other man whatsoever Or if it be thought too grating to reflect with so great and which is still worse so just and so deserved a Severity upon the Miscarriages of our own Age upon Religious Pretences you may then consult the Annals of Antiquity and then Epiphanius and Irenoeus will tell you if you consult them that there was no Crime so horrid nor any unnatural Beastliness so detestable to humane Nature not yet corrupted and depraved by vitious habits which the Gnosticks the Basilidians and the Valentinians did not practise the instances of their execrable turpitude being so horrid and so filthy that I remember when I first read them which I did in the laborious Annals of the most learned Cardinal and Jesuite Coesar Baronius I could not believe he had quoted his Authours aright and when upon a more narrow search into the business I found he had not deceived me I was amazed and could scarce believe my own eyes and to this day am very loth to believe for the respect I bear to Mankind that they are true But if such Exorbitances in our Age or any other be the effects of Liberty whether tolerated by others or assumed upon what Pretences soever to our selves then certainly since humane Nature is alwaies the same and being allow'd the same scope will alwaies be guilty of the same or like Enormities which by the prevalence of bad example and by the addition of impunity to temptation will alwaies increase instead of taking up within a dutifull compass of Sobriety and Moderation such an unbounded Liberty as this ought alwaies by the utmost Severity of publick Justice to be repress'd and punished and restrained Neither must we be so vain to pretend because such Enormities are not now usually practised among those that pretend to an higher degree of Saintship than their Neighbours that therefore they never will for we must not take our measures from the present state of things but we are to consider what would â—ollow upon the Dissolution of the Government to which these separate Congregations have a clear and a natural tendency in themselves and then we will suppose if you please that such Libertines as these if upon such infinite Pretences they do not separate themselves shall be expelled the respective Congregations to which they belong but there being no publick Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction who shall hinder them from associating into a Confederacy with one another to which all that live as if there were no God or have a desire to live as if there were no Government in the World will immediately unite themselves and betake themselves thither for Protection as to a Sanctuary of Liberty and Riot To say that such things will never happen is as much as to say they never did for whatever has been may be again when humane Nature which is alwaies the same shall be joyned to the same unhappy circumstances of Affairs To say that these things though they should happen will never be of any dangerous consequence to the publick because the common Interest of Mankind will alwaies keep a prevailing Party in better order is to set bounds to a bad example and to the corruption of manners which is impossible and besides to proceed upon this presumption without taking that course which is in its own nature the best fitted to prevent any such publick mischief which can onely be done by a regular and orderly Discipline is to lean so much upon humane probabilities and upon our selves that it is an high provocation to Almighty God to withdraw his Grace without which it is impossible for any of us to persevere in a constant and steady course of Vertue But we will suppose for once let what Toleration will be granted that things will never proceed to this extretremity but it is still to be considered that all these separate Congregations are Imperium in Imperio there being in a manner so many several Societies as there are several and independent Congregations without any foreign Appeal or Judge in Ecclesiastical matters for at this rate it shall be at the Liberty of every private Paslour to preach what Doctrine he pleases be it never so much to the disturbance of the Government of the publick as some of them doe at this time take a most unpardonable liberty in their Sermons But if it be lawfull for the Government to assume to it self a Judgment of what Doctrines tend most to the Establishment of its peace and safety it is much more lawfull for it to concern it self in matters of Discipline which are not in themselves of so great moment and which notwithstanding being left undetermin'd will have the same effects which it is for the interest of the World they should be adjusted after an uniform manner and in which the Gospel has left no rule whereby we are to manage and govern our selves If the Government where we live shall impose such things upon our Belief and Practice as are inconsistent with Salvation contrary to the duties of natural and revealed Religion and repugnant to such Propositions of Belief as are expresly revealed in the Scriptures of the New Testament then all we have to doe is to suffer patiently as our glorious Predecessors the Apostles and the primitive Christians did and we shall certainly have our reward in Heaven for so doing but if we suffer onely for breaking the Rules of decency and order which have been found by experience to be so necessary to the publick Peace and which have no other tendencie meaning or design but in order to this end unless we can alledge reasonably what I shall by and by insist upon that there is Superstition or Idolatry involved in our obedience this is not Persecution but Punishment we suffer either like Fools or Madmen or what is worse than either of these like Boutefeus Incendiaries and Disturbers of the quiet of mankind and must not expect either the Title or the Reward of Confessours or Martyrs I reckon there are three Causes especially of the present Non-conformity from the established Discipline of the Church of England The First is The Ambition or Necessity or Discontent of some bad men who know very well what Advantages may be made for the promotion of any ill Designs by a Separation neither is it any matter whether such persons be all of them actually listed in some separate Assembly so they do but abet and favour those that are but rather by paying a personal obedience to the Authority of the Church which they would have not destroy'd but enlarged by breaking down that Wall of partition to which we have no right because the Dissenters have built it upon their own ground by endeavouring to let in the Trojan Horse of Fanaticism through the Breaches of the Church by very specious but very destructive and pernicious Pretences of moderation and comprehension and such other hard names which can onely be understood by being felt by a pretended tenderness
unlimitted Toleration must of necessity be unlawfull if any thing be because it contradicts the design for which all Laws are made and that is nothing else but to secure the Peace and Quiet of the World which must needs be very inconsistent with an unlimitted Toleration by which nothing else is or can be meant but a Liberty for every man to doe or say as he pleases so he doe it upon a Religious account or out of a Principle of Conscience of which himself is the only judge in this case to say otherwise being to constitute such a foreign Appeal is altogether incompetible with such a toleration Now if it can be proved that the allowance of separate and independent Congregations without any Jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical affairs Foreign to themselves is such an unlimitted Toleration in it self and will prove so in its Effects then I suppose it will be granted that all such Separate Assemblies are unlawfull and consequently that a Toleration of them cannot be allowed by the Chief Magistrate or by the Legislative Power without a Dissolution of the Government and a betraying of that Trust which is repos'd in them for the preservation of the publique Peace What if an Holder-forth in a Separate Assembly shall teach his Auditours that they owe no subjection to any Earthly Prince that Rebellion is expresly dispensed with in the Charter of the Saints that Adultery and Sacrilege and Theft and Murther themselves though in the Wicked and the Unregenerate they be horrid crimes yet they are a part of the privilege of the Elect that all sorts of swearing are in the Reprobate unlawfull but that Perjury it self in such as are sanctifi'd and made Partakers of that new Birth by which so many Monsters are brought into the World may be not only Lawfull but Pious and Commendable and in some cases an indispensable Duty Shall the Government in this Case Shall Civil or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction be allow'd to Interpose by punishing such Profligate and such Insolent Wretches and by forbidding under severe Penalties the venting of any such Doctrines for the future which tend so manifestly to withdraw his Majesty's leige People from their Obedience and to the unspeakable perill and hazard of their immortal Souls If thus much be not allow'd then all things must run to Confusion and if it be then if the regulalation of Discipline be sound by experience to be as necessary to the publique Well-fare to the peace of the Kingdome and to the preservation of Charity and Friendship among men without which it is hardly possible there should be any such thing as true and acceptable Religion then certainly it does as much belong to and is as necessary a part of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as the other I know but two things that can possibly be urged against the irresistible force of so plain a Demonstration I call it a Demonstration because it will prove so when those Objections are considered First It may be pretended that there is no danger such Doctrines will ever be preached And secondly That a Difference grounded meerly upon matters of Discipline will never produce those bad Effects that are pretended In answer to the first there are but two things to be said the first is an Argument from Reason the second from Experience Reason tells us and so does Experience too for they cannot well be separated in this case that men are naturally subject to seek excuses first to palliate and then arguments to defend those Vices to which they find themselves addicted and of which they are known to be scandalously guilty or which they would practise for the future without controul The Drunkard he puts his excess to the account of his friendship and good nature the Lustfull plead a perpetual inclination as a natural call to enjoyment the Covetous man is desirous of the character of Provident and Frugal and the Ambitious would be thought a man of a losty and heroique mind but nothing is so great a plea for Libertinism and Licentiousness of all sorts whatsoever as when it is made an Instance of Christian Liberty and a Freedom from the Yoak of Ordinances to which none but Jews and Formalists and the tame Vassals of the dead Letter are subject There is no question to be made but there are very bad People to be found in all Parties let the Pretences to Religion be what they will but it is not my business at present to upbraid any with their sinfull practices so they do not own the Principles from whence those practices proceed But what shall we think of the Gnosticks of old time that made adulterous and incesâ—uous mixtures and promiscuous coitions a part of their Religion or of the Family of Love that doe the same or of the Sweet singers that drink Ale and puff Tobacco to excess in their very religious Assemblies or of the Reformers of this last Age that thought they did God good service by robbing his Church and persecuting his Servants to death and banishment and confiscation of goods or of the received Maxim of those blessed times Dominium fundatur in gratia that is The longest Sword has the best Title or of the Fifth monarchists of England of the incredible Impudence and Villanie of the religious Incendiaries in Scotland of the Zealots among the Jews the exact Patterns of the Zealots of our daies of whom Josephus relates such prodigious Stories of Theudas or Theodosius and his Followers and of Judas of Galilee or Judas Gaulonites and his Accomplices in the Acts of the Apostles all which under several religious Pretences have in time past or doe at present endeavour to set up for themselves and shake off the Yoak of obedience to their lawfull Superiours to their leige Lords and rightfull Masters What sort of People in the World are so arbitrary as these who yet are the loudest Declamours not onely against Arbitrary Power but against all Power but their own The Papists themselves are not more bloudy than they nor any of the persecuting Emperours more powerfully acted and possess'd by a Spirit of bitterness and persecution To conclude Did not the Levellers preach Community of goods according to the primitive example though the reason of that practice be now utterly ceas'd and to reduce the natural state of things when all things lay in common before either Industry or Arts began and what is this but a more religious method of Picking of Pockets and Breaking open Houses and Robbing upon the High way What was it but a new Invention of those pilâ—ering Saints to give Thieves and Robbers like themselves a right to the glorious Title and Reward of Martyrdom Now if all these Mischiefs and Inconveniences are owing perfectly to separate Congregations and to mens embodying themselves into particular Ecclesiastical Societies distinct from the publick Discipline and Rule if such Opinions and Practices cannot better be promoted than by independent methods nor otherwise or at least better be prevented
than by an uniform and regular Discipline of the Church then is it abundantly manifest that such â—eparate Congregations as tending plainly to the disturbance of the World are unlawfull that they may and that they ought to be suppressed and that all the Favourers and Abettors of such unlawfull Assemblies are Promoters Aiders Comforters and Assisters of Rebellion and Disobedience both against God and Man Neither is it at all material in this case that many of those who frequent these separate Assemblies nay to give them their due the infinitely greatest part of them are not conscious to themselves of any such bad Design but they doe it onely out of a religious prejudice which they have conceived against the Establishment of the Church of England and out of an opinion which they have of the greater Sanctity of their Teachers and Purity of those Ordinances of which they are made partakers by their ministration out of a real and an hearty zeal for God although that zeal be not accordâ—ng to knowledge yet we are not to consider so much what it is they design as what the natural tendencie of all Separation is which because by experience it is found to bring so great and so horrid inconveniences and mischiefs upon the World unless it be timely restrained it may and it must of necessity have very bad effects and this is enough to make men guilty of the consequences of their Separation though at first they did not intend them He that commits a fault through want of consideration is not altogether so guilty as he that knowing it to be a fault does yet notwithstanding commit it on set purpose but yet he is guilty in his proportion and degree as well as the other because it was his duty to consider better and still the more easie it is too for a man to inform himself and what is or can be more manifest than the Prejudice arising from mens embodying themselves into particular and independent Societies So much the greater is the guilt arising from the want of due heed and consideration because a very little attention would have served the turne when there is so much reason in the thing and so much experience to improve that reason into all the certainty of demonstration But secondly It will be said That a bare difference in the externals of Religion in matters of meer Discipline and Ceremonie will not produce those bad effects that are pretended and I wish with all my heart that there were as much truth in this Exception as they that make it would have it seem to have but by Experience which is the great Judge in this Controversie to which we must apply our selves for the discovery of the truth the contrary does but too manifestly appear For what is it that has been the true source and fountain of all our pablick Calamities that has made so dreadfull and so terrible Convulsions both in Church and State but an over-heated zeal against Ceremonies and publick Order which sort of zeal if it be tolerated the strength and beauty of the Church is lost by every man's pursuing fancies of his own or siding with a new modell of a particular Party instead of joining in the regular and uniform Worship of the publick which is at once an instance of our Obedience to the Divine and Humane Laws and a certain expedient of Unity and Peace with one another but if this zeal instead of being tolerated shall be restrained and opposed then it immediately complains of Persecution and would have its sufferings thought as meritorious for raising unreasonable insatiable and eternal Scruples as if the Cause of Christianity it self were at stake as if it were the being of a God or the immortality of the Souls of men that were deny'd by us and asserted onely by the Dissenters from the publick Order and Rule So that either way the inconvenience is in a manner equal a Toleration has a manifest tendencie to the subversion of the Government both in Church and State and in that there is no question to be made but it will certainly end when once it has been suffered to have its full scope and swinge and yet a vigorous Prosecution of the Laws against the Disturbers of the Peace is branded with the odious name of Persecution and they that suffer by it for being Incendiaries are termed Saints and because it is natural for a distressed Cause to find a friendship and pity from the common People whether it be reasonable or no Suffering being a very sensible and a very affecting thing when the Causes of those Sufferings are not so plain and obvious to every common understanding especially when blinded by prejudice or concern for the persons of those that suffer from hence it comes to pass that a just and necessary Prosecution of the Laws if it be not managed with abundance of temper and prudence so as it may appear it is not done out of hatred to a Party but out of a real tenderness to the common good may sometimes prove the occasion of great and fatal disorders in a State and may in its conâ—equence be attended with all those confusions to which a boundless Toleration is exposed This was the great reason of the revolt of the Vnited Provinces from under the Spanish Yoak who if they had been treated with less severity might probably by gentler methods have been reduced to Obedience but by the Cruelty of the Spanish Governours and Souldiery who pursued them especially under the Government of the Duke D'Alva with all the symptoms of the most mortal hatred they were so far alienated in their affections from a Government that used them so ill they had such a dread of those unheard of Cruelties and such a deserved aversation for that Religion that delights to propagate it self by Bloud that being assisted by the Hugonots from France whose interest it was to stand by the Reformation and by Supplies from England which was glad at that time to find an opportunity to reduce the Spanish greatness to a juster ballance with the rest of the European Princes they were at length perfectly severed from the body of the Spanish Empire and united in a common Alliance among themselves for the mutual support and main tenance of each other which though it gave beginning to the most powerfull Republick that has ever appeared since the Roman yet as a Republick in its nature and constitution is more exposed to the ambition or animositie of bad men than a Kingdom or Monarchie is or can well be so in the midst of its greatness it alwaies carried in its bowells the undoubted symptoms and causes of its ruine which it is to be feared what with the Factions at home and the daily encreasing Power of its enemies from abroad is not far off at this time But yet though Cruelty be that for which all mankind but they that exercise it upon others have a just and mortal aversation yet a
Prosecution of all Penal Laws cannot be called Cruelty unless it be Cruelty to govern or to use the necessary and the onely means to keep the World in order all Punishment is Cruelty or at least Injustice which is inflicted is defence of a bad cause or a bad religion but when the Penalties themseves are not so severe as to deserve the name of Cruel and when they are inflicted for the Preservation of a sound and orthodox Religion which I persuade my self most of the Dissenters will acknowledge that of the Church of England to be when they are inslicted for the preservation of Unity and Friendship among men when this is the onely Expedient by which an universal Friendship and Charity can be maintained by which the Government can be rendred safe in it self and easie to those that are to obey by which we can be rendred quiet and secure at home or considerable abroad by which we can be put in the best capacity to resist an Enemy or to succour an Ally or to transmit the Profession of the Gospel in its native purity and beauty down to our own Children and to their posterity through all generations as long as time shall endure whereas without this course we shall be subject to infinite changes and vicissitudes in our Secular and in our Ecclesiastical Concerns and shall be more dangerously exposed when our strength by a Toleration is disunited and broken in pieces to the incursions of Idolatry Superstition Infidelity Debauchery Prophaneness and of all manner of Evil whatsoever it be this is sufficient to justifie a lawfull Power in the use of the onely means by which these Inconveniences may be avoided and if it shall so happen through the evil disposition of men that a Prosecution of the Laws which is the onely possible expedient of Peace and Safety shall yet notwithstanding produce the same mischiefs and disorders which a Toleration would have done yet in this case the Magistrate will have the satisfaction in his own Conscience and before God of having discharged his duty and of not having betray'd that trust which is reposed in him which in the other as being a natural means to bring us all to confusion I do not see how he can ever have or expect The Contentions about matters of Discipline are therefore manifestly of the highest importance because they occasion a Separation which is the fruitfull mother of all those fatal mischiefs both to Church and Kingdom that have been mentioned already and can never be too often repeated or too seriously reflected upon I would very willingly know of our Dissenters what they think themselves upon supposition that the whole Nation were divided and parcell'd out into separate and independent Congregations which is that which an unlimited Toleration would produce whether or no its strength wou'd be so firm and so compacted as it is now To say it would is to say that a divided interest can be as strong as that whose parts are never so well compacted and knit to one another and it is besides this absurdity in the reason of the reason of the thing to contradict the experience of our own Age and of all that have gone before it to maintain the lawfulness of such separate Congregations notwithstanding those many and dismal inconveniences to which they are exposed is to affirm that it is lawfull to endeavour the subversion of the Government which in this case will never be able to maintain it self without a standing Army no more than in the times of usurpation and it will be very hard if not impossible besides other incommodities and pressures to which this way of administration is exposed that instead of defending the Laws they shall not at some time or other subvert them instead of making the Prince happy and his People secure they shall not make both miserable obnoxious and dependent instead of agreeing together for the maintenance of the common peace and safety they shall not fall out among themselves partaking of the epidemical giddiness of the People whom they pretend to serve but are in reality their absolute Lords and Masters and burn up all the sences of Property and Right in the unnatural flames of an intestine War I demand farther whether they can or do suppose though God be thanked we are not yet brought to the utmost persection of Tumult and Disorder that the separating of so many particular Congregations is not a weakning of the Government as well as the dividing the whole Nation into such independent Assemblies would be a subvertion of it Certainly this depends in its proportion upon the same reason with the other and therefore cannot be deny'd besides that the present posture of affairs doth sufficiently prove it to be true when our Heats and Dissentions about indifferent matters as men are pleased to call them have made us from a Nation that was used to be the Umpire and the Arbiter of Europe to become so inconsiderable as we are abroad and so uneasie and unsafe at home besides that by our Divisions we encrease those dangers of Popery which we pretend to dread while by an universal but deserved cry against so detestable a Superstition we are heaping coals of fire upon our own heads against the day of wrath and persecution if ever it prevail among us and we provoke our Enemies with more zeal than prudence unless we would join together as we ought to do in a common League to resist them so that it still appears more and more evident upon all considerations that Uniformity is necessary to the publick safety it is necessary to the honour and seemly appearance of the Government as well as to the happiness of it it appears likewise that separate and independent Congregations are therefore unlawfull because where there is no common jurisdiction there can be no common rule of discipline and order it appears that a Toleration of such independent Assemblies is a Toleration of uncharitableness and strise among men and therefore as being directly and diametrically opposite to the very nature and temper of Christianity it must of necessity be unlawfull lastly it appears that humane impositions are lawfull because this Uniformity which is necessary to the quiet of the World and to the making Christianity usefull to so good an end cannot possibly be obtained without them Separation let it be for what cause or upon what pretence soever does as I have said already imply a dislike and does create an alienation of affection in the parties separating from one another and therefore since a quarrel is much more easily somented than begun since it is hard in many cases for the best tempers to â—e reconciled to one another but very easie by new provocations to add new fewel to the fire of discord till it grow masterless without any hopes of quenching therefore no such Separation ought ever to be made without necessary causes and such as make Communion in its own nature unlawfull