and Christians in the whole world besides It being in no Church or Countrey observed with that punctuality and in that Sabbatical manner as by those persons Whence it 's plain that such observation thereof could neither be derived from Christianity in general nor from Protestantism as such but meerly from a Jewish tincture these persons have received A fifth Instance shall be their Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Which though it be not peculiar to these men yet is so universally and ardently embraced by the men of that way as is scarce to be parallel'd And he that seeks the Source of so odd an Opinion can in my opinion pitch no where more probably than upon the absolute Decree of God to favour the posterity of Abraham for his sake It pleased God to bestow the good Land of Canaan upon the descendents of that good man and he resolved and declared he would do it without respect to their deserts now this is made a sufficient ground to conclude That accordingly as he disposed in this Temporal affair so he will proceed by the same way of Prerogative in determining the Eternal Doom of Men. I will add but one more which is their superstitious observation and interpretation of Prodigies To this a great number of this Party are so addicted that every unusual Accident every new Appearance in the World be it in Heaven above or in the Earth below is presently commented upon and applications made of the errand of it though for the most part with Folly as manifest as is the Uncharitableness yet with Confidence as if it were undoubtedly true that God governed the affairs of the World by as visible a Providence now as he did heretofore in the Land of Judaea and the remembrance of what he did then seems to be the only imaginable account of this conceit of theirs now Many other Instances might be given of this kind but I have made choice of these because they contain the principal Doctrines and most Characteristical Practices of the Non-conformists and these carrying so plainly the marks of Judaism upon them and being no otherwise accountable than upon those Principles I think I said not improperly when I called Judaism the second Cause of our Unhappiness since any man may easily see that such Notions and Principles as these are must needs indispose those that are leavened with them to Conformity to or perseverance in the Church of England 3. But if the weakness of Judgement or bad Instruction only obstructed the prosperity of this Church it were not very difficult to find a Remedy but alas the minds of a great number of men are under such Prejudices as have barricado'd them up and rendred them almost inaccessible and that I reckon as a third Cause of our Distractions Prejudice is so great an evil that it is able to render the best Discourses insignificant the most powerful Arguments and convictive evidence ineffectual this stops mens Ears against the voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely This alone was able to seal up the Eyes of the Gentile World against the Sun of Righteousness when he shone upon them in his brightest glory and to confirm them in their blind Idolatries when the God that made Heaven and Earth gave the fullest discoveries of himself that it was fit for mankind to expect Upon the account of this the Jews rejected that Messias they had so long expected and gloried in before he came though he exactly answered all the Characters of Time Place Lineage Doctrine and Miracles that their own Writings had described him by Nay 't was Prejudice abused the honest minds of the Disciples themselves so that they could not for a long time believe those things Christ Jesus told them from the Scripture must come to pass only because they were against the grain of their Education and were cross to the perswasions they had received in common with the rest of the Jews No wonder then if the Church of England suffer under Prejudice amongst those that have not only seen it stigmatized with the odious marks of Popery and Superstition and had been drawn into a Solemn League and Covenant against it as if it had been an act of the highest Religion to defie and execrate it and so had both their Credits and their Consciences engaged against it But also had lived to see it proscribed for near twenty years by a prevailing Faction Few have that Generosity and strength of mind to bear up against the torrent of times or Confidence enough to oppose the impetuousness of common vogue and prevailing opinion There are not many have the sagacity to discern the true images of things through those thick mists that cunning Politicians cast about them It is very ordinary to take the condemnation of any Person or Party for a sufficient Proof of the Accusation and to think the Indictment proved if the Sentence be past with common consent It was enough both with the Jews and Gentiles against our Saviour that he was condemned as a Malefactor the Ignominy of his Cross was a greater Argument against him with the generality than the excellency of his Doctrine or Evidence of his Miracles was for him This Church was dealt with like the Great Lord Strafford run down by common Fame opprest by Necessity not by Law or Reason and made a Sacrifice to the inraged Multitude The Arguments against it were not weighed but numbered As that Great Lords Impeachment was of Accumulative Treason so was the Churches of Popery there was more in the Conclusion than could be made out by the Premises and in the summ total than in the particulars of which it consisted for though no one point of Popery or Superstition could be proved against it yet it must be so upon the whole This being agreed the cry then is Crucifige destroy it root and branch And now was the Church seemingly dead and as I said before buried too for near twenty years but when by the wonderful Providence of God it was raised again as it was matter of equal Joy and wonder to all such as were not too far under the power of these Prejudices so it could not be expected otherwise but that weak and timerous persons should run from it as from a Ghost or Spectre To all which add That it was the corrupt Interest of some to deceive others into an ill opinion of it partly as being inraged that by the Churches unexpected Revival they lost its Inheritance which they had divided amongst themselves partly being conscious to themselves that by reason of their no more than vulgar abilities they could be fit to fill no extraordinary place in the Church and yet were not able to content themselves with any ordinary one and therefore chose to set up a Party against it and become Leaders of a Faction since they might not be Governours of a Church And when it is come to that pass that by this craft we get our
what age soever do not think themselves at years of discretion enough to pass a judgement upon and prescribe to the Body Politick whether Church or State Though it usually happens that such Empiricks either to shew their wit suspecting distempers where there are none make them or whilest they rashly adventure quiet a movere and like Englishmen will be alwayes mending they make work for better skill than their own or lastly if they discover some small matter amiss mistaking the cause of it not only lose their time and labour which would be easily pardonable but exhaust the spirits of the Patient with improper medicines and purge out the good and useful juices as noxious humours and so the Physician becomes far the greater disease of the two That our Church is of a sound and healthful constitution and might have continued so had it not met with this fortune I think I have sufficiently though briefly manifested in the foregoing Introduction But some men either loving to be alwayes reforming or having first separated from it that they may either commend their own skill or justifie their own fact must accuse the Church We read of Brutus that having killed Caesar he was alwayes after inveighing against him as a Tyrant Ità enim facto ejus expediebat saith the Historian It was expedient he should call Caesar Tyrant for otherwise himself must be a notorious Traytor So these men though the greatest disorders of the Church be but what themselves have made must find faults that they may not seem to have raised all the dust and withdrawn themselves and others from it without cause 1. And in the first place the Doctrine of this Church is blamed though thanks be to God there are but few that are of so little discretion as to bring in this charge and those that are will never be able to prove it The main if not the only thing excepted against in this kind is that the thirty nine Articles are not so punctual in defining the five points debated at the Synod of Dort as they could wish But this though it neither needs nor deserves an answer yet I shall reply these two things to it First That it is not so with the Doctrine of Christianity as with common Arts and Sciences which depend upon humane wit and invention and consequently are capable of daily improvements For the mind of man having not an intuitive knowledge but proceeding by way of discourse discovers one thing by another and infers things from one another so that there is not a Nè plus ultrà in those things but daily new discoveries dies diem docet Whereto accords the saying of wise men Antiquitas saeculi est juventus mundi That which we call the old World is but indeed the infancy of knowledge and the latter Times must needs have as much the advantage of truth as they have of deliberation and experiment But it is quite otherwise with Christianity for that depending solely upon Divine Revelation can admit of no new discoveries time may obscure it and the busie wit of man may perplex and confound it with its inventions but can never discover any thing new or bring to light any truth that was not so from the beginning For if we admit of new Revelations we lose the old and our Religion together we accuse our Saviour and his Apostles as if they had not sufficiently revealed Gods mind to the world and we incurr St. Paul's Anathema which he denounces against him whosoever it shall be nay if an Anger from Heaven that shall preach any other doctrine than what had been received And St. Jude hath told us the Faith was once that is either at once or once for all delivered to or by the Saints But if we shall pretend a private Spirit or Revelation to discover and interpret what was before delivered we do as bad we suppose Christ and his Apostles not to be able to deliver the mind of God and we open a Gap for all Impostures and delusions perpetually to infest and corrupt Christian Doctrine The consequence of these premises is that contrary to what I affirmed before of other Sciences the elder any Doctrine of Christianity can be proved to be it must needs be the truer and accordingly deserve the greater veneration from us as coming nearer the fountain of Evangelical Truth Divine Revelation and that he that talks of more clear Light of the latter times and clearer discoveries in Religion talks as foolishly as he that should affirm he could discern things better at a miles distance than the man that hath as good eyes as himself and yet stood close by the object This being so it must needs be the excellency and great commendation of this Church that her Articles of Doctrine agree better with the first Times of Christianity than the last Age and is an irrefragable Argument that she derived it not from any Lake or lower streams troubled and mudded with mens passions and disputes but from the Fountain of the holy Scripture and from those who certainly had best advantage of understanding it in its own simplicity the Primitive Church That no one Father or Writer of the Church whether Greek or Latin before St. Austin's time agreed in Doctrine with the determination of the Synod of Dort is so notoriously plain that it needs no proof nor can be denyed And if he I mean St. Austin agrees therewith yet it is certain that in so doing he disagrees as much with himself as he doth with us of the Church of England And what if St. Austin a devout good man but whose Piety was far more commendable than his Reason being hard put to it by the Manichees on one hand and the Pelagians on the other was not able to extricate himself who can help it Shall his Opinion and that which he was rather forced into by disputation than made choice of but especially shall the Determination of a few Divines at Dort vye with the constant Doctrine of the Primitive Church or make that an imputation upon our Church which is really amongst its Glories Must a novel Dutch Synod prescribe Doctrine to the Church of England and outweigh all Antiquity Shall those that knew not how God could be just unless he was cruel nor great unless he decreed to damn the greatest part of Mankind that could not tell how man should be kept humble unless they made him not a man but a stock or stone Shall I say such Men and such Opinions confront the Antient Catholick Apostolick Faith held forth in the Church of England Secondly The Articles of the Doctrine of this Church do with such admirable prudence and wariness handle these points we are now speaking of as if particular respect was had to these men and care taken that they might abundare suo sensu enjoy their own Judgements and yet without check subscribe to these Articles And accordingly it is well known that not many years since
before it lay under any ill character But that this Church doth not so syncretize with that of Rome as to make its Communion unsafe or sinful I suppose the following Considerations will give sufficient security to an unprejudiced mind In the mean time let me intreat him that hath entertained any suspicions of that kind against her to give an ingenuous Answer of these two or three Queries 1. If there be such a dangerous affinity betwixt the Church of England and the Romish how came it to pass that the blessed instruments of our Reformation such as A. Bishop Cranmer Ridley Latimer and others laid down their lives in testimony to this against that For if those of the Church of Rome could have been so barbarous as cruelly to murder those excellent persons for some slight Innovations or for differing from them in Circumstantials yet certainly such wise and good men would not have been so prodigal of their own blood nor weary of their lives as to cast them away upon Trifles It is probable at least therefore that those of the Church of Rome thought the English Reformation to be essentially different from them and it is more than probable that those holy men aforesaid thought so and did not offer to God the sacrifice of fools 2. Or how comes it to pass that all those of the Roman Communion withdraw themselves from ours and are commanded so to do by the Head of their Church under peril of damnation And on the other side the true Protestants of the Church of England think it their duty to absent themselves from the Roman Worship lest they should defile their Consciences with their Superstitions I say how comes this distance and apprehension of sin and danger reciprocally if the differences between them be inconsiderable 3. Whence comes it to pass that the Bigots of the Romish Church have more spite against our Church than against any Sect or Party whatsoever but that they take us not only for Enemies but the most mortal and formidable of all those they have to do with Or Lastly if both the Church and Church-men of England are not far enough removed from any participation with that of Rome how comes it to pass that they of all men most zealously and constantly upon all occasions stand in the gap and oppose the return of Popery into England when other men either slight the danger or are so fond of their own private sentiments as apparently to run the hazard of this for the sake of them Any reasonable man would think those men have not really such an abhorrence of Popery as they pretend and that there might easily be found terms of accommodation between them when he shall observe them more fond of every petty Opinion than concern'd for the publick Security against that common Enemy And that they will rather venture the danger of that breaking in upon them than forgo the least fancy or opinion nay will be instrumental in procuring a Toleration and suspension of the publick Laws for that which they are so jealous others should have any kindness for And for proof of this I call to witness the transactions of the last year when those very men that would be thought the Atlas's and only supporters of Protestant Religion and would give out as if their Zeal was the only Bulwark against Popery had by their separation from and enmity to this Church weakned the common interest and by their restless importunities and unlimited desires of liberty in a manner extorted a suspension of the Laws touching Religion Had not His Majesty and His Parliament timely foreseen the consequence and the whole Nation been awakned into an apprehension of the danger by the serious and constant admonitions of the Episcopal Clergy Popery might have come in like a Landflood upon us notwithstanding those quicksighted Watchmen that can spy Popery so far off I say had not the Church-men especially bestirred themselves and shewed both a better courage and zeal against Popery and also a better skill in that warfare than their Accusers the so much dreaded Enemy had ere this time been in fair hopes of attaining his desires This was a passage of so much glory to the true Church-men and so great and illustrious an instance of their integrity that I am in hope whilest it shall remain in memory Malice it self will be ashamed to lay any imputation of inclining to Popery either upon the Church or Church-men of England I shall not need to add to all this That there are as understanding men in Religion persons of as holy Lives and of as comfortable Consciences of this Churches Education as are any where to be found in the world besides Which three things together fully acquit any Church of participation with Popery For that degeneracy of Christianity is for nothing more truly hateful nor by nothing more discoverable than by its blind devotion principles of immorality and the bad security it gives to the Consciences of men which who so acquits any Church of as every considerate man must needs do this Church he shall after that very unreasonably leave any ill character upon her at least of that nature we now are speaking of 3. But there is a terrible Charge yet to come and that is against the Sufficiency but especially the Sanctity of the Clergy and Ministry of the Church of England as if they like the Sons of Eli 1 Sam. 2. 15. made men to abhor the offerings of the Lord. And this is made the pretence of resorting to Conventicles and forsaking the Church Now if this was as true as it is horribly false it might be an Objection perhaps fit for a Papist to make who is taught that the efficacy of all Divine Offices depends upon the intention and condition of him that administers But no Protestant without contradicting his own principles can make use of it to justifie his recession from the Church For if the efficacy of all Divine Ordinances depend upon the Divine Institution and the concurrence of Gods Grace with my use of them what can it prejudice me that he that administers is an evil or unlearned man so long as I prepare my self to receive benefit immediately from God in the use of the means appointed by him This therefore may serve for a malicious stone to cast at us from whom they are departed but no argument in the cause nor excuse for themselves Yet I confess nevertheless this way of arguing for we must be forced to call hard word by that name is of great prevalence with injudicious persons and able to prejudice them against the best Constitutions in the world For they not understanding the reason of things give reception and entertainment to any proposition in proportion to the opinion or reverence they have for the person that recommends it It is a known story how well the Spartans were aware of this and therefore if in their Council a man of a bad life had propounded
excellent counsel they would not suffer him but suborn some other person of great sanctity to be the Author of it Amongst other reasons lest the ill opinion that was generally conceived of the person should derogate from the weight and value of the counsel and advice Therefore the more extreamly to blame are those that acknowledging the truth and excellency of the Doctrine of the Church of England can yet find in their hearts to undermine the success of it by sowing suspicions and in raising scandals against them that are to propagate it It will be to the immortal glory of the Great Constantine that when at the Nicene Council the Bishops and Clergy had exhibited to him a great bundle of Libels one against another he burnt them all together before their faces as thinking them fitter for the fire than the light And protested he had so great a zeal for the reputation of Church-men and such a sense of the concern and consequence of their good same and reputation that if he should see one of them in the most scandalous commission he would cover such a mans shame with his own Purple But as I doubt in these dayes there is little of the Spirit and Charity of Constantine so thanks be to God there is little need of it in this case for I doubt not to convince this suggestion against the Church-men of as much falshood as the former against the Church of frivolousness For though there want not those in these dayes that are so quick-sighted as to discover spots in the Sun it self Though I say there be both those that have great skill in all the methods of uncharitableness such as can insinuate little whispers and jealousies first and then foment and hatch them up to a story and then aggravate the fact and lastly make the folly of some one man be the scandal of the whole Order And also those Atheistical persons whose interest it is in order to the extenuating their own villanies as much as may be to render the persons of those that reprove them as ridiculous as they can and to that purpose are become great proficients of late in a scurrilous kind of drollery whereby they can sublimate their own vices and debaucheries into a kind of vapour a meer frolick and Gentile humour and on the other side aggravate the meer humane infirmities of graver men into great deformities yet all their combined wit and malice will never be able to affix any scandal upon the Body of the present English Clergy 1. For their Learning and Ability If the Preaching of the present Age be not better than that of former I would fain know the reason why the Homilies are in no greater reputation and should expect to see the people desire their Pastors to read them in the Congregation and save the labour of their own compositions If the Sermons of foreign Divines be better than those of the English what is then the reason that all Protestants abroad admire the English way of Preaching insomuch that some foreign Congregations as I am credibly informed defray the charges of the travails of their Pastor into England as well as dispense with their absence that they may return to them instructed in the method of English Preaching Whether the Preaching in the Church of Rome be to be preferred before ours he that hath not a mind to travail into those parts may yet indifferently well resolve himself if he take but the pains to read a Book written by Erasmus of the Art of Preaching which whosoever hath done or shall do I verily perswade my self he shall quickly be able to reckon up more follies and ridiculous passages than all those gathered together by the Author of the Inquiry into the Causes of the Contempt of the Clergy Lastly He that shall take the pains or have the curiosity to compare the Preachings generally in our Churches with those ordinarily in the Conventicles will either find them very unequally matcht or else if he hath any reason at all he hath reason to suspect himself intolerably prejudicate For on the one side he shall find sound Theology strength of Argument gravity of Expression and distinctiness of Method on the other side nothing more frequent than puerile and flat oft-times rude and sometimes blasphemous expressions Similitudes instead of Arguments and either apish Gestures or tragical Vociferations instead of Eloquence Besides a wise man may in great measure take an estimate of the wisdom and abilities of a Preacher or Writer by the very subject he chooses to discourse on and not only by the manner of handling it And he that shall impartially apply himself to this little trouble may easily observe the Sermons and Tractates of the Non-conformists generally to be either about Predestination which besides the danger of it amongst the people for mistakes nothing but unskilfulness could make any man confident enough to undertake the unfolding of or about Union with God and Christ which themselves confess to be unintelligible and they help to make it so or the sweetness beauty and loveliness of Christ's Person which is seldome handled with any better effect than the stirring up some sensual passion or other in the fond Auditors as I have seen verified by experience God forbid that I should charge all the Non-conformists with such indecencies as these but it is manifest it is such kind of discourses as I have intimated that are the most taking and ravishing amongst them But then on the other side you shall hear Discourses of the Nature and Attributes of God and the reason of Religion deduced thence of the Divine Providence and Arguments of Contentment Reverence and Submission inferred therefrom of the Eternal reasons of Good and Evil and indispensable obligations to Virtue as the consequence of that principle laid upon the Consciences of men of the nature of Faith the necessity of Holiness of Charity of Obedience to Governours all which are good and profitable and of great weight and importance If we now compare the Writings of both parties the difference will yet be more legible Although it hath been observed of old by a Wise and Great man That generally the ablest of men have not been most given to writing of Books as being loth to make themselves Themes for fools to comment upon but a middle sort of men are most disposed and usually have best success that way whose Genius is more adequate to vulgar capacities yet let any man of competent judgement lay passion and prejudice aside and say if the Writings of the Divines of this Church both in the Controversies of Religion and most other parts of Learning have not matcht any other Profession any other Church but extreamly overmatcht their Opponents It were easie to name Men and Writings but I conceive it needless in so clear a case 2. But then for the lives of Church-men Though I will not render evil for evil nor retaliate the reproaches cast upon the Sons of
have taken an effectual course to make it so durable by this stratagem When he had framed the body of their Laws he pretends occasion of Travail to consult the Oracle at Delphos about their affairs but first takes an Oath of all the Lacedemonians to preserve the Laws in being inviolable till his return Which having done he resolvedly never returns to them again By this means whilest the people were by the Religion of their Oath and a long expectation of his delayed return for a long time used to the Constitutions he had established they grew so well practised in them that at last Custom had habituated and even naturalized them to them that they became unchangeable Agreeable hereunto is the observation of our own Lawyers that the Common Law as they call it is never grievous to the people and seldome repealed whatever defects are in it as Statute-Laws frequently are because long Custom and Use hath fitted either that to the men or the men to it that all things run easily and naturally that way It is observed also by Divines That when God Almighty gave a peculiar Body of Laws to the people of Israel he took not only the opportunity of their straits and adversities at their coming out of Aegypt that his Institutions might the more easily be received but also kept them fourty years under the continual education in and exercise of those Laws and that in the Wilderness where they were not likely to take in any other impressions nor have other examples before their eyes to tempt or corrupt them And besides all this in a wonderful providence he so ordered it that all those men that came out of Aegypt except Caleb and Joshua and had observed other Customs and Laws and so might be likely to give beginning to innovation should all dye before they came into the Land of Canaan That by all these means the Laws he gave them might take the deeper root and so remain unalterable to all generations I cannot choose but observe one thing more to this purpose That when our Blessed Saviour had by himself and his Apostles planted his Religion in the World though it was such a Law as sufficiently recommended it self to the minds of men by its own goodness easiness and reasonableness and therefore was likely to be an everlasting Religion or Righteousness as the Prophet Daniel calls it yet for more security it pleased the Divine Providence to restrain the rage of Pagans and Jews for a good while and to give the Christians above sixty years of peace before any considerable persecution broke in upon them that in that warm Sun it might spread its roots and get some considerable strength and footing in the world But it was the will of God that the strength of this new-born Church of England should be early tryed And that it might give proof of its divine extraction it must like Hercules conslict with Serpents in its cradle and undergo a severe persecution the good King Edward the Sixth dying immaturely and Queen Mary succeeding him in the Throne By which means it came to pass that as this Infant-Reformation gave egregious proof of its intrinsick truth and reasonableness many fealing it with their blood so it had this disadvantage that we are all this while representing namely that by reason of this persecution a great number of the Ministers and other members of this Church were driven into other Countreys for refuge and shelter from the storm and there were as it 's easie to imagine tempted with novelty and distracted with variety of Rites and Customs before they were well instructed in the reasons or habituated to the practice of their own And hereupon as it is usually observed of English Travailers brought home with them those foreign fashions the fond singularity of which is still very taking with too many to this day I say thus it came to pass that those that went out from us returned not again to us when they did return in regard that before they were well inured to the English Reformation they became inamoured of the Rites of other Churches not much considering whether they were better so long as they were fresher and newer nor minding that there are oft-times reasons that make one Form necessary to be established in one place or people and not in another when otherwise it is possible they may be both indifferent in themselves but not equally fit to the humour and custome of the people or consonant to the Civil Constitutions nor yet observing that many things were taken up and brought into use in other Churches not upon choice but necessity not because they were absolutely better in themselves but the state of affairs so requiring As for instance where the Reformation had not at first the countenance of the Civil Government there the Reformers were constrained to enter into particular confederations with one another from whence Presbyterian Government seems to have taken its rise I say these Exiled English Protestants not entring into so deep a search into the special causes or occasions of those different Rites and Forms they found in the places whither they fled for succour as to discover whether they were strictly Religious or meerly Political but observing some pretexts of Scripture to be made for them and in process of time during their abode in those parts being used to them and by use confirmed in them they at last when they might with safety return to England again came home laden with these Foreign Commodities and crying them up with a good grace found too many Chapmen for such Novelties Thus as the children of Israel even then when they had Bread from Heaven Angels food longed for the Onions and Garlike of Aegypt remembring how sweet those were to them under their bitter bondage and had upon all occasions and upon every pet or disgust a mind to return thither So these men retained as long as they lived a lingring after those entertainments which they found then very pleasant when other was denyed them and so much the more in that as I said before they received a tincture of these before they had well imbibed or sufficiently understood the reasons of the Church of England And though these men are now dead yet the Childrens Teeth are still set on edge with the sowre Grapes their Fathers have eaten For those persons being considerable for their Zeal against Popery and very much recommended to the esteem of people at their return by the travail and hardship they had underwent for the Protestant profession were easily able with great advantage to communicate their Sentiments and propagate their Prejudices amongst the Members of this Church Here therefore I think we may justly lay the first Scene of the Distractions of this Church A second Cause may be reckoned the bad and incompetent provision for a Learned and Able Ministry in the Corporations and generality of great Parishes in England It is easie to observe that
An Enquiry into y e Causes of the present Separation from the Church of England Hic verus est cultus in quo mens colentis seipsam Deo immaculatam victimam sistit Lact. A Serious and Compassionate INQUIRY Into the Causes of the present Neglect and Contempt of the Protestant Religion AND CHURCH OF ENGLAND WITH Several seasonable Considerations offer'd to all English Protestants tending to perswade them to a Complyance with and Conformity to the Religion and Government of this Church as it is established by the Laws of the KINGDOM Tertual Scorpiac adv Gnostic Non in occasione frustrandi Martyrii jubet te Apostolus scil subjici Magistratibus sed in provocatione bene vivendi Sine ira studio quorum causas procul habeo Tacit. Ann. 1. London Printed by Robert White for Richard Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner MDCLXXIV INstead of an Epistle to the Reader as the manner is I humbly submit the ensuing Discourse to the Censure of my Superiours in the Church of England and to the consideration of all the Non-conformists of whatsoever Sect or Denomination hoping the former will pardon the defects of it and that the latter may by Gods blessing reap some benefit by it THE CONTENTS THE INTRODUCTION Wherein the Antient Estate of Christianity in general is compared with the present and the Condition of the Reformed Religion in this Kingdom in the first times of it is compared with that of the present Age And the Change lamented PART I. An Enquiry into the Causes and Origin of the Separation from and Contempt of the English Reformed Church CHAP. I. Wherein are represented several things that are pretended but are not the true Causes of our distractions and dissatisfactions viz. 1. Corruption in Doctrine 2. The too near approach of this Church to the Roman 3. The Scandalousness of the Clergy All which are disproved pag. 1. CHAP. II. Of the more remote and less observed Causes of the infelicity of this Church such as 1. The Reign of Queen Mary and return of Popery under her in the Infancy of the Reformation 2. The bad provision for Ministers in Corporations c. 3. Frequent Wars 4. The liberty in Religion that Trade seems to require 5. The secret designs of Atheists and Papists p. 30. CHAP. III. Of the more immediate Causes of the Distractions of the Church of England such as 1. Rashness of popular Judgement 2. Judaism 3. Prejudice 4. Want of true Christian Zeal in the generality of its Members p. 56. PART II. Wherein several serious Considerations are propounded tending to perswade all English Protestants to comply with and conform to the Religion and Government of this Church as it is established by Law CHAP. I. A Reflection upon divers wayes or Methods for the Prevention and Cure of Church-Divisions p. 85. CHAP. II. Of the true notion of Schism the sin and mischievous consequents of it p. 105. CHAP. III. Of the nature and importance of those things that are scrupled or objected against in this Church and that they are such as may without sin be sacrificed to Peace and therefore cannot excuse us from sin in separating from the Church upon their account p. 121. CHAP. IV. The those that find fault with the Constitution of this Church will never be able to find out or agree upon a better p. 140. CHAP. V. That God layes very little stress upon Circumstantials in Religion p. 151. CHAP. VI. That the Magistrate hath Authority to determine such Externals of Religion as are the matters of our disputes and what deportment is due from Christians towards him p. 159. CHAP. VII Wherein Christian Liberty consists and that it doth not discharge us from Obedience to Laws p. 175. CHAP. VIII Of a Tender Conscience what it is and its Priviledges p. 190. CHAP. IX The great dishonour that disobedience to Laws and Magistrates and the distractions of Government do to any Profession of Religion whatsoever p. 212. CHAP. X. The danger by our Distractions and Divisions p. 223. The Conclusion p. 240. THE INTRODUCTION WHEREIN The Antient estate of Christianity in general is compared with the present and the Condition of the Reformed Religion in this Kingdom in the first times of it is compared with that of the present Age And the Change lamented WHosoever seriously considers the Certainty and Excellency of the Christian Religion in its own nature and withal observes with how just Veneration it was received with what Ardour imbraced with what Courage and Constancy maintained and practised then when all the Powers on Earth sought to suppress it when the Wit and Malice of the World was combined against it and when to be a Christian was the plain way to ruine and the loss of whatsoever uses to be dear to men in this world And shall compare herewith the present State of Christendome now since the offence of the Cross is ceased and the Faith of Christ as is become the Profession of Kings and Princes and besides all other either arguments of its truth or inducements to embrace it is confirmed by the successive Suffrages of so many Ages and the concurrent Votes of so great a part of Mankind He I say that shall take the little pains to make this Comparison cannot choose but be astonished at the contrary face of things and be ready to say with Linacer Aut hoc non est Evangelium aut nos non sumus Evangelici Either Christian Religion is not what it was or men are not what they were wont to be For besides the palpable Contradiction of the Lives of the generality of Christians now to the Rules of their Religion laid down in the Writings of the New Testament which is such as would make an indifferent man suspect that they believed those Books to contain absolute impossibilities or at least not the things that are necessary to salvation since so few take the Rule of their Lives or the Measures of their Actions thence Besides this I say he that shall observe how the Primitive Christians for several Ages after our Saviour are reported to have lived and how far short the latter Ages fall of those Examples will be tempted either to pronounce the Histories of those Times meer Romances or the Men of these Times to be any thing rather than what they call themselves Such a general Declension there hath been that the complaint of Tully concerning the Philosophers of his time may justly be applyed to the Christians of ours That they made disciplinam suam ostentationem scientiae non legem vitae non obtemperant sibi ipsis sed in eo peccant cujus profitentur scientiam That whereas Christian Religion was calculated for no other Meridian designed to no other purpose than the bettering and improving the Tempers and Lives of Men it is perverted rather to an Apology for our Loosness than applyed to the Cure of our Disorders I cannot please my self with so odious a
Party hath gone for Holiness of Life Men have been busie in making new Creeds and have forgotten to practise the old one And since the Empire hath been divided into East and West Churches have been at defiance and as opposite to each other as those points are In short the once famous Greek Churches are now over-run with so squalid a Barbarism that little but the Name of Christianity is left amongst them And the Roman Church whose Faith was famous and spoken of through all the world is now as infamous for Usurpation Superstition and Cruelty and so deformed with Pagan Rites and mundane Policies that Christianity is the least part of her What shall we take to be the reason of this general Defection Was it only Novelty and not its intrinsick Goodness and Reasonableness that commended this Religion to the World that the longer it lasts the less it signifies Or are the Principles of Christianity effete like the Causes of the Gentile Oracles as Plutarch discourses that all the motives of Virtue and Holiness have now so little influence upon mens tempers and lives Or is it true that was said of old Religio peperit divitias filia devoravit matrem since Churches have been endowed men have espoused only the Fortune and not the Faith Or is the true reason that of old Christianity was deeply rooted in the Hearts of men and brought forth the fruits of good works in their Lives whereas now it is only a barren notion in mens Heads and is productive of nothing but leaves of Opinion and Profession Then it was the employment of mens hearts in meditation of their knees in devotion of their hands in distribution and beneficence now it is become the entertainment of mens ears in hearing novelty of their tongues and lips in censuring and disputing But whatever the causes have been such is the condition of Religion generally in the Greek and Latin Churches and I doubt if we come nearer home we shall not find things much better This Island of Britain had the glory not only to be the native Countrey of Constantine the first Christian Emperour but a far Greater that under Lucius it received the Christian Faith first of any great Kingdom in the world Britannorum loca Romanis inaccessa Christo verò subdita saith Tertullian The Cross made a more effectual as well as a more happy Conquest here than all the Roman Powers could do And this Northern Climate was not only thus early enlightned with the beams of the Sun of Righteousness but had life and warmth proportionably An evidence whereof we have in that we find British Bishops at the Council of Arles which was held before the Nicene And at the time of the Nicene Council Britian was counted one of the Six Dioceses of the Western Empire And for the Zeal of the British Christians the Martyrdom of St. Albane Amphilochius and others are great and glorious instances But to descend to lower times The Inhabitants of this Island have not been more famous for Martial Prowess against their enemies hospitality to strangers and good nature towards all mankind which three things have been and I hope are still their peculiar glories than for sincere piety and devotion Polydore Virgil an Italian and Erasmus a Dutchman both of the Roman Communion and competent Witnesses do affirm That there was more true Devotion and sincerity of Religion in this Church and Kingdom of England than in any one place of the world besides What was said of Sparta that ibi senes sunt maximè senes might be applyed to this purpose that here Christians were so the most heartily and truly of any people in the world The Universal Pastor as he would be called I mean the Bishop of Rome observed the Sheep of England to bear such good Fleeces and so patiently to submit to the Shearer that he kept a watchful eye over this Flock and his vigilancy was rewarded with the Golden Fleece He and his Emissaries found such large hearts and devout minds here that we are inabled to understand the reason of their great concern for our going astray since and their earnest and unwearied endeavours to reduce us back again to that fold Yet what by being oftner shorn than fed and then not with the best Pastures neither what by the ill examples of others but especially of their Guides and what by length of time corruption overspread this Church too But then as it happens in bodies of a strong and vivacious Constitution when they chance by ill Diet or other accident to be stuft with Crudities and bad humours they Critically evacuate them by meer strength of Nature So this Church gave certain proof that it had sana principia and a true sense of the reality of Christianity that one of the first in Christendom it returned to it self and a just temperament by a Reformation And the Reformation of this Church which the Romanists for their own ends so much detest and some others unreasonably slight was as much the Emulation of other Nations as Glorious in it self For 1. It was the most orderly and best becoming Christianity it was not brought in with Tumult and Sedition as most Changes are but by Laws and the Supream Magistrate There was no noise of Axes and Hammers in this Building but the several parts of this Fabrick fell in together with a kind of Harmony as the Jews say of the Temple of Salomon 2. It was the most moderate and temperate as being the result of Deliberation and Reason not of blind Passion or an humour of Innovation Our Reformers did not purge out the good because formerly it had been abused as the humour of some men is to do but vindicated what was useful from the abuse they neither countenanced what was evil by the good was to be found nor rejected the good for the casual adherence of evil They did not abolish a venerable Order or Office in the Church for the ill manners of some that had born it but took care to put better men in the rooms of such They were not of opinion that the Church could not arrive at primitive purity unless it was reduced to primitive poverty nor because they found some Ceremonies then used that were superstitious and dangerous and thought too many were but densome therefore concluded all decency in the service of God was Popish And in short they did not depart farther from the Church of Rome by Reformation than she had departed from the Truth and her self by degeneracy and corruption By all which they demonstrated that the change they made was not for the sake of humour and faction but necessity and publick good The Church of Rome reproaches us with the sinister ends of the Prince and several of those that sate at the helm of this great affair But who knows not that it is the usual method of Almighty God to bring about his own designs and accomplish the greatest benefits to
Mankind by making the sinister intentions of men co-operate towards them He made use of the unnatural cruelty of Joseph's brethren towards him to the preservation of the whole family of Jacob sending Joseph into Aegypt as an Harbinger and Nurse to provide for them in a famine And in respect hereof Joseph tells them it was not they but God sent him thither The Cruelty of Pharaoh who sought by severities to break and wear out the Israelites harden'd them and prepared them for all the difficulties they were afterwards to encounter The obstinacy and incredulity of the Jews proved to be the riches of the Gentiles The persecution of the Apostles at Jerusalem made way for the spreading of the Gospel into all other Countreys Instances of this kind are innumerable or if they were not yet were it very unsafe for those of the Church of Rome to make this objection lest they provoke us to say what cannot be either denyed or justified That the barbarous Tyrant and Usurper Phocas brought in the Universal Pastorship of the Bishop of Rome and that the most bloody and rapacious Princes have ordinarily been the great Patrons and Indowers of their Church thinking it seems to hallow their own Villanies and legitimate their unjust acquisitions by dividing the spoil with the Bishop and Church of Rome 3. The English Reformation was the most compleat and perfect in its kind as retaining the most antient Doctrine and soundest Confession of Faith founded upon the holy Scriptures and agreeable to the first General Councils the most Primitive Church-Government and a Liturgy the best accommodate to reconcile and unite mens Devotions Such a Liturgy as Mr. Fox the Author of the Martyrologie is not afraid to say was indited by the Holy Ghost but certainly had a great testimony in the unspeakable joy and contentment holy men took in it in King Edward the Sixths dayes their zeal for the maintenance of it longing for the restitution of it and sealing it with their blood in Queen Maries dayes and the universal triumphs and acclamations at the restoring of it in Queen Elizabeths Reign And admirable it is to consider how happy this Church and Nation then was in what Glory and Majesty the Prince reigned in what Peace and Concord the Subjects lived but especially it is remarkable how devout and pious an Age that was as is scarce perhaps to be parallel'd since the time that Christianity flourisht under Constantine the Great what reverence was then yielded to the Ministers of Religion What devotion to the publick worship How general an acquiescence of hearts and minds in it Which the greater it was the more just is our wonder and the more reasonable our inquiry what should be the Cause that in the same Church and amongst devout and honest-minded Englishmen such a zeal should terminate in so cold an indifferency as may now be observed or rather that such a blessed harmony should degenerate into so much discord as is now too discernable amongst us We read Ezra 3. that when the second Temple at Jerusalem was building the young men rejoyced at the reviving glory of their Nation and Religion but the old men that had beheld the far greater splendour and more stately Majesty of the former Temple built by Salomon they wept as contemplating how far this came short of that so that it was hard to say whether the shouts of the young men or the lamentations of the elder were the more loud And truly when we consider in how low a condition the Church of England was some few years since till it had a happy Resurrection with the return of our Gracious Soveraign will see cause to rejoyce and thank God that we are in no worse condition than we are But he that understands and considers what was the felicity of the first Age of our Reformation and compares it with the present condition of our affairs will have just cause to lament the difference For in those dayes so venerable was the Society of the Church that to be cast out of it by Excommunication was as dreadful as to be thunder-smitten that Sentence was like Proscription amongst the Romans which they counted a Civil death and dreaded as much as a Natural But now it is become a matter of Ambition with some and a piece of Glory And to be cast out of the Church is as good as Letters testimonial or recommendatory to other Assemblies There were few or none then that did not constantly frequent the Church now the Church is become the Conventicle in many places and the Conventicle the Church in respect of the fulness and frequency of the one and the unfrequentedness and destitution of the other Aristonicus came to a certain City in Greece where he observed many Temples but few Men that would hear him He therefore instead of the usual phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cryes out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hear O ye Stone-walls less hard than the hearts of men The Application is too easie in our case In that time we speak of the Liturgy and publick Prayers were counted a principal part of Gods worship now they are not only nothing without a Sermon but in danger to desecrate the Sermon too by their conjunction The Bible is scarce Canonical if it have the Prayers bound up in the same Cover and so extreamly offensive are they grown to some that they will rather totally neglect the publick Worship of God and never receive the Communion whilest they live than have to do with the Common Prayers Heretofore there were but few things scrupled in the establisht Religion and those were very few that made use of any such pretence or scruple but now it is become the great point of Sanctity to scruple every thing There was one indeed and he a great man that said there were tolerabiles ineptiae in our Liturgy and the most favourable return he met with was that he had his tolerabiles morositates Now the title of ineptiae is counted too mild an expression whatever suits not the present humour is either Jewish Popish or Superstitious This Change is sadly lamentable that good Laws should be thus trampled upon the best Church in the world thus despised and the best minded People thus abused Now my business is therefore in the first place to enquire from what Causes this hath come to pass PART I. An Enquiry into the Causes and Origin of the Separation from and Contempt of the English Reformed Church CHAP. I. Wherein are represented several things that are pretended but are not the true Causes of our distractions and dissatisfactions viz. 1. Corruption in Doctrine 2. The too near approach of this Church to the Roman 3. The Scandalousness of the Clergy All which are disproved WE have a Proverbial saying amongst us that Every one that is forty years old is either a Fool or a Physician But without a Proverb to justifie the undertaking there are but few that at
when the Dort Opinions were very predominant amongst many Divines of this Church they used it may be a little more scholastick subtilty to reconcile their own Opinions with these Articles but never condemned the latter for the sake of the former And at this day divers good men are in the service of this Church that are in their private Judgements of the Dort perswasion and yet never thought their subscription to these Articles did any violence to their Consciences or Judgements therefore this can be no cause of our Troubles nor ground of Separation from the Church A second pretence against this Church is that it is not sufficiently purged from the dross of Popish Superstitions that it comes too near the Church of Rome and so the Communion of it is dangerous Popery is an odious Name in this Nation and God be thanked that it is so for it deserves no less But as Constantine when he condemned the Arrians and decreed their Books should be burnt appointed that they should be called Porphyrians a Name sufficiently detested by the generality of Christians So those men that have a mind to reproach the Church know no more effectual way of affixing an Ignominy upon it than by laying the imputation of Popery to it And indeed if the Charge were as true as it is false or if it were as probable as it is malicious it would not only serve to exasperate the Vulgar against the Church but to justifie their Secession from it But it is hard to say whether the unreasonableness or the uncharitableness be greater in this suggestion For 1. It is certain there hath been little or no alteration made in either the Doctrine Discipline or Liturgy since the first Reformation and therefore if either of them incline too much that way they did so from the beginning Now that which I inquire into is what should be the causes of the late revolt and separation from this Church or what should make that discernable change in mens affections towards it from what was in the former Age And he that tells me it was Popishly constituted at first gives indeed a reason if it was true why this Reformation should not have been entertained at first but doth not assign a cause why those should depart from it now that had imbraced it with so much zeal formerly He therefore that would speak home to this case must shew that this Church hath lost its first love and hath warped towards the old corruptions from which it was once purged But this is so far from being possible to be shewn that it is certain on the contrary that all the change that hath been made of late years hath been meerly in complyance with and condescension to those that object this against it and a man would reasonably expect they would easily pardon such Innovations But in truth the main quarrel is that we are not alwayes reforming but keep to the old Matron-like Dress the Queen Elizabeth fashion If the Governours of the Church would comply with the curiosity of this wanton Age our Religion would quickly have the fortune of Apelles's picture according to the known story He to deride the conceited folly of the Age exposes to publick view a Master-piece of his work And as it usually happens that every body pretends to skill in reforming by the incouragement of the Proverb that saith facile est inventu addere scarcely any person that past by but spent their verdict upon the picture All commend it in the general yet to give some special instance of their skill every one finds some fault or other One would have had more Shadow another less one commends the Eye but blames a Lip c. The subtil Artist observes all and still as any passenger had shot his bolt alters the picture accordingly The result was that at last by so many Reformations it became so deformed and monstrous a piece that not only wiser men but these vulgar Reformers themselves wondered at it and could now discern nothing worthy so famed an Artist He on the other hand to right himself produces another Piece of the same Beauty and Art which he had hitherto kept up by him and had escaped their censure and upbraids them thus Hanc ego feci istam populus This latter is my work the other is a monster of your own making This is our case Christian Religion was by holy and wise men our Reformers devested of those gaudy and meretricious accoutrements the Romanists had drest her up in and habited according to primitive simplicity but this would not please every body every Sect and Party would have something or other added or altered according to their several phancies and Hypotheses which if it should be allowed the opinions of men are so contrary one to another as well as to truth the true lineaments of Christianity would quite be lost Upon this consideration hath not this Church been very fond of alterations But to all this it is likely it will be replyed That now we have more light and discover blemishes and deformities which though they were before yet we could not discern when our selves came out of the dark Den of Popery At first like the man under cure of his blindness Mark 8. 24. we saw men as trees walking we discovered only some more palpable errors but now we discern though lesser yet not tolerable deformities 2. To this therefore I answer in the second place That it is certain all is not to be esteemed Popery that is held or practised by the Church of Rome and it cannot be our duty as I have said before to depart further from her than she hath departed from the truth for then it would be our duty to forsake Christianity it self in detestation of Popery To reform is not surely to cast away every thing that was in use before unless Barbarism be the only through Reformation The Historian observes of those that spoil Provinces and ransack Kingdoms ubi solitudinem fecere pacem appellant when they had converted a flourishing Countrey into a desolate wilderness they called this a profound peace But sure to reform is not to destroy and lay waste but to amend Unless therefore it can be proved against the Church of England that she holds or practises any thing false or sinful it will little avail them that object against her and as little be any blemish to her constitution that in some things she concurs with the Roman Nor is it reasonable to say such a thing is received from the Church of Rome meerly because there it is to be found unless it be to be found no where else for though it be true that many things are the same in both Churches in as much as it is impossible they should be Churches of Christ at all else yet it is as true that those things wherein they agree are such and no other as were received generally by all Christian Churches and by the Roman
the Church by ripping up the miscarriages of the other perswasions For besides that I have not so leaned Christ I have observed so much of the world that such uncharitable recriminations have not only made an Apology for the Atheism and Profaneness of the Age but afford a pleasant spectacle to all evil men to behold Divines coming upon the Stage like Gladiators and wounding and murdering one anothers reputation To which add that I verily hope the Lives of the generality at least of the Clergy of England are so unblameable and commendable in themselves that they need not the soil of other mens deformities to set them off or recommend them Yet I will say these two two things further in the case 1. If a man be a male-content with the Government and forsaking the Church resort to private Assemblies or if being a Clergy-man and continuing in the Church he shall debauch his Office and undermine the Church which he should uphold such a man may then debauch his Life too and yet have a very charitable construction amongst the generality of dissenters And on the other side if a man be of singular sanctity and the most holy conversation but withal zealous of the interest of the Church and his own duty in it this man shall have worse quarter and be more maligned by the fiery Zealots of other parties than one that is both of a more loose life and meaner abilities Whence it plainly appears that the bad lives of Clergy-men if it were true is but a pretext not the true cause of quarrel with the Church 2. If impertinent and phantastical talking of Religion be Religion if endless scrupulosity and straining at Gnats if censoriousness and rash judging our Betters and Superiours if melancholy sighing and complaining be true Christianity if going from Sermon to Sermon without allowing our selves time to mediate on what we hear or leisure to instruct our Families if these and such as these are the main points of true Godliness then I must confess the Sons of the Church of England are not generally the most holy men and the Non-conformists are But if a reverent sense of God and Conscience of keeping all his express Laws if Justice Mercy Contentment Humility Patience Peaceableness and Obedience to Governours be the principal ingredients of a good life as doubtless they are if we take our measures either from our Saviour the Apostles or Prophets Then I do not despair but the Church-men may be good Christians and of far more holy lives than their accusers notwithstanding all the contempt cast upon them For upon this Issue I dare challenge Malice it self to be able to fasten any brand of bad life upon the generality or body of the Clergy I know this Age is not without some of the brood of Cham who will take the impudence to uncover their Fathers nakedness and expose those deformities which they ought not only out of charity or reverence but wisdom also to conceal And it is not to be expected that such a body of men made of the same flesh and blood and solicited with the same temptations with other men should be altogether without spot or blemish yet I do really believe those are extream few of that number that justly deserve any scandalous character and also very inconsiderable in respect of the whole And he that shall for the miscarriages of a few reflect dishonour upon the Clergy in general shall do as unrighteously as he that shall take a downright honest man and omitting his many and great vertues and innumerable good actions only rake up and represent in an odious Catalogue all the follies of his youth and errors of his life By the which artifice the best man in the world much more the best Society of men may be rendred odious enough It is well enough known that the healthfullest body is not without some humours which if they were all drawn together into some one part or member would make an ill and dangerous spectacle but whilest they lye dispersed in the whole mass of blood where there is a vast predominancy of the good or else are lockt up in their private cells glandulae or other receptacles till they shall be critically evacuated do in the mean time little or nothing indanger or deform such a body I need not apply this to the case in hand To conclude therefore Were there but either so much Charity and Humanity as ought to be in Men and Christians or so much unprejudicacy as becomes wise and good men used in this matter we should instead of reproaching the failings or miscarriages of a few heartily thank God for that remarkable Holiness Humility and Charity that is yet alive and warm in the breasts of so many of the Divines of this Church in this cold and degenerate Age. And for the rest we should think of that saying of Tacitus Vitia erunt donec homines sed neque haec continua meliorum interventu pensantur CHAP. II. Of the more remote and less observed Causes of the infelicity of this Church such as 1. The Reign of Queen Mary and return of Popery under her in the Infancy of the Reformation 2. The bad provision for Ministers in Corporations c. 3. Frequent Wars 4. The liberty in Religion that Trade seems to require 5. The secret designs of Atheists and Papists HItherto I have only noted and refuted the Scandals and Contumelies cast upon this Church which how groundless and unreasonable soever they are yet do not a little mischief when they are whispered in corners and insinuated in Conventicles I might have reckoned up some more of the same nature and as easily have disproved them but they are either reducible to those we have touched or will fall under consideration in due time I now proceed from those Imaginary to inquire into and consider of the true and real Causes of the present disaffection to the English Reformation and they will be found to be of several kinds but I will not trouble my self curiously to distinguish them into exact Classes contenting my self faithfully to relate them and represent their peculiar malignant influences And in this Chapter I will bring into view these five following 1. It was the misfortune and is the great disadvantage of this Church that it was not well confirmed and swadled in its Infancy It is the observation of wise men that it greatly contributes to the duration and longevity of any Society to have a good time of Peace in its Minority and not to have been put upon difficulties and tryals till its limbs and joints were setled and confirmed that is till the people were competently inured to the Laws and the Constitutions by time digested into Customs and made natural to them The State of Sparta remained intire without any considerable change in its Constitution or Laws the longest of any Society we have read of And Lycurgus the Law-giver and Founder of that Common-wealth is thought to
the multitudes of Opinions that deform and trouble this Church are generally hatcht and nursed up in the Corporations Market-Towns and other great places whereas the lesser Countrey Villages are for the most part quiet and peaceably comply with Establish't Orders And if I should say that not only the Dissatisfaction with the Rites and Government of the Church but also the Convulsions and Confusions of State took their Origin from the bad humours of those greater Societies or Congregations of people I suppose I should say no more than what the observation of every considerative man will allow and confirm Now he that searching for a reason of this difference shall impute it either to the Ease Fulness and Luxury of the former whereby they have leisure and curiosity to excogitate Novelties and spirit and confidence to maintain and abett them whilest the latter tired with hard labour neither trouble themselves nor others but apply themselves to till the ground and earn their bread with the sweat of their brows or to the multitude and great concourse of people in the former amongst whom Notions are more easily started better protected and parties sooner formed for the defence and dissemination of them He I say that discourses thus gives a true account for so much but searches not far enough to the bottom For had there been an able Learned Orthodox Clergy setled in such places they by their wisdome and vigilance would in a great measure have obvated all beginnings of these disorders partly by principling the minds of men with sound Doctrine partly convincing Gain-sayers and especially rendring the Government of the Church lovely and venerable by their wise deportment In order therefore hereunto there ought to have been the most liberal Maintenance and ingenuous Encouragement setled upon such important places That where the work was greatest and the importance most considerable the motives to undertake it might be so too To the intent that the most able and judicious Clergy-men might have been invited to and setled upon those places that most needed them But contrariwise it is most visible that in those places where most Skill is to be exercised and most Labour to be undertaken there is little Revenue to encourage the Workman In a little obscure Parish or Country Village often-times there is a well endowed Church but in these great ones generally where the Flock is great the Fleece is shorn to the Shepherds hands and so pittiful a pittance left to the Curate or Minister that he can scarce afford himself Books to study nor perhaps Bread to eat without too servile a dependance upon the Benevolence of his richer Neighbours By which means either his Spirit is broken with Adversity or the Dignity of his Office obscured in the meanness of his condition or his Influence and Authority evacuated having neither wherewith to live charitably nor hospitably or all these together nay it is well if to help himself under these Pressures he is not tempted to a sordid Connivance at or Complyance with all those Follies and Irregularities he should correct and remedy And so like Esau sell his Birthright the Dignity of the Priesthood for a mess of Pottage Now how this comes to pass that the greatest Cures have generally the least Maintenance is easily found for it is well enough known that in those Times when the Popes had a Paramount Power in England a great part of the Tythes and Revenues of Churches were by their extravagant Authority ravisht from them and applyed to the Abbies and Monasteries and this like an Ostracisme fell commonly upon the greatest Parishes as having the best Revenues and consequently the more desirable Booty to those hungry Caterpillers and so the Issue was that the richest Churches were made the poorest in many such places little more than the Perquisites and Easter-Offerings being left to those that shall discharge the Cure And then though afterwards these superstitious Societies were dissolved yet the Tythes being not thought fit to be restored to their respective Churches the consequence is that those places which ought for the good both of Church and State to be well provided for are too often supplyed by the most inconsiderable Clergy-men or those men made so by the places they supply My meaning is that by reason of the incompetent Legal Maintenance provided for such Ministers the people have it in their power either to corrupt an easie and necessitous man or to starve out a worthy and inflexible one and so whatever the humour of the place shall be it is uncontroulable and incurable To remedy these inconveniencies it hath of late pleased His Majesty and the Parliament to make some provision so far as concerns the City of London and it is hoped the same wisdom will in time take like care of other great places in the same condition for till some such course be taken it will be in vain to expect that the Church of England or the best Laws of Religion that can be devised should either obtain just Veneration or due Effect 3. I account the late Wars another Cause of the bad estate of the Church and Religion amongst us Which may perhaps seem the more strange since when men put their Lives most in danger one would think they should then take the most care to put their Souls out of danger Besides it hath been the wisdom of most Nations to desire the countenance and incouragement of Religion in all their Martial undertakings The Romans made great scruple of enterprizing any thing of that nature till either their Priests from inspection of the Sacrifice or some other of their Pagan Oracles had given them the signal And the Turkish Mufti or High-Priest must give the Prime Visier his blessing before he enters upon the business Whether it be that men indeed believe God Almighty to be the Lord of Hosts and to give Victory to those that stand best approved with him or whether it be only that they apprehend that the opinion of being under Gods favour gives reputation to their Arms inspires their men with valour and resolution and disheartens their enemies or upon whatsoever consideration it is certain the matter of Fact is true and that Religion is of great efficacy in Warlike exploits It may I say therefore seem the more strange that War should be injurious to that which it seeks to for countenance and encouragement But most strange of all that Enemies abroad should make men quarrel with their Friends at home that Iron and Steel Wounds and Blows should make men tender-conscienced that those who can find in their hearts to shed the blood of Men of Christians and of their Brethren without remorse should be so queasie stomached as to scruple every punctilio and nicety in Ecclesiastick matters And yet he that narrowly considers the rise and progress of our Disorders will find that the distractions of the Church have kept pace with those of the State and as before the War our
those of other Cities But thanks be to God there is no necessity of having recourse to such a violent Remedy the Laws of our Religion do both admit of and direct and govern Commerce and the reasonableness of our Christian Religion in general and of the English Reformation in particular is such as that it may be well hoped they may rather gain than lose Proselytes by being confronted with any other Institutions and allure considerate men to the embracing of them whilest some lighter and incogitant persons may be betrayed by their Curiosity All the Use therefore that I make of this Observation concerning Trade is That since there is some danger to Religion thereby all those that do not make a God of the World and take Gain for Godliness will think these three things following to be reasonable 1. That since it is plain the same Means will not preserve Uniformity in Religion nor conserve the Reverence and Happiness of the Church in a Nation vastly addicted to Foreign Commerce as would do where the more simple way of Agriculture was attended to as it was amongst the Spartans and this Nation formerly that therefore there may be such Laws provided and such care taken as that the one be not discouraged nor the other corrupted 2. That every man will not only take care to inform himself in the grounds of his own Profession of Religion but also have so much Charity towards the Governours of his own Countrey and this Church as to think them both as wise and as honest as in other places that by both these his Reason may be instructed and his Affections somewhat composed against every assault of Novelty from other mens Opinions or Practices 3. That at least we will not think it just to impute all the Distractions of mens Minds and Quarrels against the Church to the badness of its Constitution since this point of Trade hath such influence as we see both in the Nature of the thing and in the visible Effects of it 5. It must not be omitted that both Papist and Atheist though upon several grounds combine their Malice against this Church and use all their several Interests and Endeavours to render it as contemptible as they can For the former Manet altâ mente repôstum Judicium Paridis spretaeque injuria formae We know they remember the slur we gave then in our Reformation they are well aware that the decent Order the Dignity and antient Gravity of this Church reproves and shames the Pageantry of theirs They forget not how often the eminent Abilities of our Church-men have baffled theirs therefore they are to be reckoned upon as immortal Enemies They know nothing stands so much in the way of their Designs as the Church of England This hath the countenance of the Laws the support of Reason the favour of Antiquity the recommendation of Decency They therefore can easily frame themselves to a complaisance towards all other Sects because they despise them but here oderunt dum metuunt their fears and danger by this provoke their endeavours inflame their anger and suffer them not so much as to dissemble their spite against it It is well enough known how under the disguise of Quakers and other names they have undermined its reputation and given it what disturbance they can how by their Insinuations into some loose o◠weaker persons they seek to weaken is powers and draw off her numbers how they have furnished others with Arguments to impugn it and subaided all unquiet spirits against her They that scruple nothing themselves nor will suffer any to scruple any thing in their own Communion can teach people to be very nice and squeamish in the Church of England They that are altogether for a blind Obedience at home preach up tenderness of Conscience abroad and when an Implicite Faith will do well enough in Spain or Italy c. yet in England nothing must content men but Infallible Certainty and that in the most circumstantial and inconsiderable matters Then for the Atheists They conscious of the odiousness of their pretences though of late arrived at greater impudence than formerly think it not safe to laugh at all Religions at once though they equally abhor all Therefore lest they should ingage too many enemies at once they deal by Retail and expose to scorn the several Parties of Christians one after another But to be sure the better any Perswasion is the more industriously they set themselves to depress it as knowing well if they can bring that into Contempt they may be secure of the other which must one time or other fall of themselves by reason of the unsoundness of their Foundations Besides it seems something below them to set their wit against a Fanatick they must have higher game and their Jests go off more piquantly when they gratifie the popular envy by being level'd against that which hath a great stock of Reputation and the countenance of publick Laws These blind Beetles that rose out of filth and excrement and now buz about the world hope not only to cover their shame but to increase their Party daily by the divisions of Christians and therefore labour to inflame the Causes to provoke mens Passions and exasperate their minds one against another They scurilously traduce all that is serious and study Religion only to find out flaws in it And what they cannot do by manly Discourse they endeavour by Buffoonry In short It is their manner to dress the best Religion in the world in a phantastical and ridiculous habit that Boyes may laugh at it and weak people brought out of conceit with it and their Worships made merry with the Comedy Now since the Church of England is beset with all these Enemies and under the aforesaid Disadvantages it is no wonder if the felicity and success of it be not a little disturbed It was noted amongst the Felicities of old Rome as that which gave it the opportunity of growing up to so vast a Greatness That till it had by degrees subdued all its Neighbours and was now match for all the World it had never but one Enemy at once to encounter Whilest this Church in its first times had only those of the Church of Rome to confiict with it easily triumphed over them and maintained its Peace and Dignity at home but that now under the Circumstances I have represented in the five foregoing Particulars it bears up so well as it doth is an illustrions argument of its Strength and Soundness of Constitution and they are very severe and uncharitable persons that reckon its Enemies and Misfortunes in the number of its Vices or Faults CHAP. III. Of the more immediate Causes of the Distractions of the Church of England such as 1. Rashness of popular Judgement 2. Judaism 3. Prejudice 4. Want of true Christian Zeal in the generality of its Members COming now in this Chapter to enquire into the immediate Causes of the Evils we groan under I
do not see how it is possible to be avoided but that in touching this sore I must make some body or other smart And therefore I bespeak so much candour of the Reader that he will believe it is not any delight I take to rake in the wounds of my Brethren and fellow-Christians but that it is meer compassion to the Souls of men and good will to the publick Peace and nothing else that prompts me to this undertaking For had any other ends swayed with me I could better have pursued them in silence and privacy or at least in the choice of some other subject than this which is so tender and ticklish But conscious of my own sincerity in the undertaking and in confidence of a benign interpretation I proceed 1. And First I perswade my self that it will be manifest to any considerative and impartial person that a great part of the aversation to the Church of England arises from that which is the constant and known Adversary of every thing that is generous and excellent namely popular Rashness and Injudiciousness When weak persons judge of the Determinations and Counsels of wiser men and those that pierce no further than the meer surface of things pass a Verdict upon those whose Reasons are profound and deep there can be no good Issue expected It is certain there are many men of honest Hearts who yet have not senses exercised as the phrase of the Apostle is whose Intellectuals are either clouded by an unhappy Constitution of Body or were never well opened and enlarged by Education and Study Those generally not being sensible of their own infirmity nor knowing how little that which they understand is compared with what they are ignorant of are ready to think there is no larger Sphere of Knowledge than that which themselves move in and by reason that they do ad pauca respicere facilè pronunciant not foreseeing the difficulties easily come to a conclusion and censure all that complyes not with their own measures It 's easie to observe men hugging their own Phancies and entertaining with scorn and contempt things above their capacity or out of the rode of their meditations I by no means commend the zeal of that Bishop Virgilius by name who became a Martyr for the opinion that there were Antipodes though it was demonstrably true and the contrary impossible But I observe thence how severe and rash a bolt folly will discharge And I little doubt but that if a man should assert the mobility of the Earth or some other such opinion which yet the generality of the Learned are agreed in and do it with the like constancy that Virgilius did if he had the people for his Judges he would be in danger of the same Fate But to come nearer my purpose It is an Observation not more antient than true That the same thing seldome pleases the many and the few Wise men generally take middle Counsels as finding by Experience not only Peace but Truth for the most part to be there placed The Vulgar contrariwise are altogether for Extreams and when one Extream disgusts them run violently to the other without stop or stay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Historian The middle opinion is condemned by both extreams and those that stand by it like those that go about to part a fray receive blows from both sides Erasmus the glory of his Time and Countrey for the sagacity of his wit and simplicity of his temper because he came not up to the height of either of the then contending Parties though he was admired by the Wiser was mortally hated reproached and persecuted by the Vulgar of both Parties It is not much to the honour of Mr. Calvin that he is said to have written to Bucer who was employed in the English Reformation That he should take care to avoid moderate Counsels in Religion In which advice he complyed but too much with the humor of the Vulgar especially of this Nation at least if the observation of a witty Writer of the last Age be well taken But perhaps it is not the Levity but the Spirit and Vigor and natural Courage of the people that middle Counsels are not acceptable to them but however it is easie to remember that when in the late Times some disgusts were taken at the publick management of Affairs no Proposition or Expedient would at one the fault or propitiate the people but the utter Subversion of the Government When Popery displeases we think our selves never safe till we are run as far the other way and again when those that have been at the highest pitch of Fanaticism suspect their standing and have a new qualm come over them there is then no remedy no safety no Ark but the Church of Rome Now the Church of England cutting by a thred as it were between both these Extreams escapes not a severe Censure on either hand Those of the Church of Rome cannot but confess that all is good in our Liturgy only they say it is defective in many things that they have a great value for Protestants on the other side generally acknowledge the main to be good but some things they account redundancies which they would have taken away And so between them both they give a glorious Testimony to this Church as guilty of the Faults of neither Extream whilest yet she is accused of both But that which I chiefly intend is this That a great part of men have not their Minds elevated above the Horizon of their Bodies nor take an estimate of any thing but by its impression upon their Senses From whence it must needs follow that whatever most powerfully strikes them must also be most admired by such persons and nothing else Now the Liturgy of our Church being composed plainly gravely and modestly no turgid or swelling expressions no novelty of phrase or method no luxuriancy of wit or phancy seems therefore dull and flat to such mens apprehensions And on the other side such Prayers as are occasionally conceived and uttered by men of hot tempers like themselves with a torrent of words and in a melting tone strike them with great admiration and almost transport them Insomuch that they are ready to conclude without more ado the former to be a cold formal Service but these latter to be the very Dictates and Impulses the Breathings of the Holy Spirit And so for Preaching Those Divines that deliver themselves gravely and considerately that take care to speak the words of truth and soberness that endeavour calmly and modestly to inlighten the minds of their Hearers seem to such people heavy and unedifying But if there be a sort of heady and incogitant Preachers that have more heat than light that thunder in mens ears with a stentorian noise and make use of such dreadful expressions as raise the humours and passions of the body or such soft similitudes as demulce and mitigate them or such mystical representations as transport their imaginations
and confound them those seem mighty-powerful-soul-saving-Preachers Who sees not that this must needs be a mighty disadvantage to the Church of England When Devotions shall be esteemed by their noise and not by their weight and Sermons tryed not by their light but heat But if to all this Truth and Falshood also and that in the most sublime points and which is more Expediency it self must be decided at Vulgar Tribunals so that there shall not be that Doctrine so profound or nice which every man will not take upon him to determine nor that Reason so subtle which the crassest minds shall not pretend to understand nor that Rule or Art of Government which shall not fall under vulgar cognizance if every mans Mind become the Standard and Touchstone of every Truth it is impossible upon the suppositions before laid but there must be dissentions disputes and distractions in such a Church and yet neither the Doctrine Discipline Liturgy nor Ministers thereof be to blame For unless the Reformers of such a Society be no wiser than the Vulgar and the Clergy and Governours and all Learned men have the same sentiments with the people unless I say all could be alike wise or alike weak where all will be alike Judges it is absolutely impossible it should be otherwise Those therefore of the Church of Rome have a cure for this They appropriate all Judgement to the Clergy and deal with the rest of Mankind as Sots and Ideots not permitting them to read the Scriptures in the Vulgar Tongue lest they should grow too wise to be governed nay they will not allow them to be masters of common sense but requre them to believe the most contradictory Propositions and make that an Article of Faith which a man may confute by his Fingers ends This is an admirable way to wean them from their own Understanding to unlearn them Disputes and to exercise them to believe in and obey their Rulers This way makes the people Sheep indeed but silly ones God-wot But the Church of England hath no such Antidote of Disputes and Divisions as this is She makes not her self the Mistris of mens Faith nor imposes upon their Understandings She teacheth that our Saviour hath delivered the Mind of God touching the points of necessary Belief or essential to Salvation fully and plainly to the capacity of every considering man that will use the means and in other lesser matters debatable amongst Christians she allows a judgement of Discretion Only since the Peace of the Church often depends upon such points as Salvation doth not and since in many of those every man is not a competent Judge but must either be in danger of being deceived himself and of troubling others or of necessity must trust some body else wiser than himself She recommends in such a case as the safer way for such private persons to comply with publick Determinations and in so advising she jointly consults the Peace of the Church and the quiet of mens Consciences So all that she challenges is a Reverence not a blind Obedience And if after all this some people will be foolish and proud and contentious she hath no further Remedy than to declare them guilty of Sin and Contumacy and that not sufficing to cast them out of her Communion But when all this is done men may be peevish and wilful and render the State of that Church unhappy whose Constitution is neither guilty of Tyranny nor Remisness Now if it shall be objected to this Discourse That this cause from the consideration of the Folly and Injudiciousness of men is too general and will equally extend to all other Reformed Churches as well as our own and especially that this might have brought forth all the Evil we complain of and impute to it in the former Age as well as now for as much as the generality of people were not much wiser then than now To this I answer in two points 1. If other Reformed Churches have not found the effects of Ignorance and Arrogance joyned together as well as we which doubtless they have done more or less it is not to be ascribed to the happiness of their Constitutions but to the unhappiness of their outward Circumstances Their Poverty Oppression Persecution or being surrounded with common Enemies hath probably prevailed upon them to lay aside or smother their private Opinions and to check their animosities more than our Gratitude to the Almighty for our Ease and Peace and Plenty and Liberty hath done upon us Who knoweth not that the Church of Corinth first needed the severe check of an Apostle for their wantonness and divisions that one was of Paul another of Apollos c. And who can give a more probable account of this their Luxuriancy than from the riches ease plenty and liberty of that City Or who hath not observed that whilest the Primitive Christians were in Adversity surrounded with Enemies and under Pagan persecuting Emperours so long they had one heart and mind they submitted their private phancies and peculiar sentiments to publick safety but the same constituted Churches quickly broke out into Quarrels and Factions as soon as a warm Sun of Prosperity shone upon them We have reason accordingly not to charge our unhappiness upon our Religion nor our troubles upon our Prosperity but to lay them at the right door of our Folly and Weakness 2. That these Evils broke not out in our Church sooner since the Seeds of them were sown long ago is due to the joy and contentment that men generally took at their first emerging out of the darkness and superstitions of the Church of Rome by the Reformation which was proportionable to the deliverance and so great that for a time it suffered them not to be very solicitous about little disputes or scrupulosities Like the people of Greece when the Romans at the Isthmian Games by a publick Herald pronounced them and their Countrey free they forgat the contentions they came together about and used to be infinitely taken with But when the novelty of this great Blessing was over Protestants forgat the great and intolerable burdens they had escaped and then began scrupulously to weigh every petty inconvenience and by the goodness of God not having a publick Enemy to unite them quarrel amongst themselves This therefore may be admitted as one cause of our unhappiness 2. That which I would assign as a second cause I know not well what name to give to it But for want of a better expression I will adventure to say That a great part of this Nation having been leavened with Jewish Superstition or Jewish Traditions hath thereby been indisposed to an uniform reception of and perseverance in the Reformation of Religion held forth by this Church How this sowre leaven should get in amongst us is not very easie to determine Some Stories would incline a man to think that it had been in the veins of this Countrey ever since it first received the
Christian Faith for the greatest difficulty Austin the Monk found here was to bring the Inhabitants from the observation of Easter and some other Rites according to the manner of the Jewish and Eastern Churches to that of the Roman and Western and the doing it as the Story tells us cost the lives of twelve hundred Monks who it seems stubbornly opposed his Innovation Which by the way is a good argument that this Church owes not its first Christianity to the Church of Rome or this Monastick Apostle as they would perswade us since it is plain by this passage that he made our Ancestors only Romanists but found them Christians before and perhaps of a better and more generous race of Religion than that he ingraffed upon the old stock But I will make no use of this for perhaps we may find the rise of this Judaism nearer hand if we observe that the great Patriarchs of the Non-conformity such as Cartwright Ainsworth H. Broughton and others were great Students of the Rabbinical Writings and the main of their Learning lay that way and as by this sort of Study which was rare in those dayes they got the reputation of great Rabbies so perhaps they might not only by this means be bewitched with the Jewish fancies themselves but propagate their unhappy Sentiments through their followers to this generation But howsoever it came to pass the matter of Fact will appear undeniably true That a vein of Judaism runs through the whole Body of the dissenters from the Church of England Of which I will give some Instances And the first shall be their grand Hypothesis That nothing is lawful in the service of God but what is expresly prescribed in Scripture This is the Characteristical Doctrine of that Party and in confidence of the truth of which they cry out of us for uncommanded Rites and humane Inventions and little less than Idolatry Now whosoever well considers this Tenet will find it so irrational in it self so servile and destructive of all Christian Liberty and making so ill reflections upon the Goodness of God as I shall have occasion to shew hereafter that it is not to be imagined how it should enter into the minds of men much less find such entertainment and so zealous patronage amongst so many honest and devout men were it not that they studied the Old Testament better than the New and graffed their Christianity upon the stock of Judaism And the case must be after this manner They considering and observing how punctually God prescribed some very little matters touching the Temple and National Worship of the Jews in the Law of Moses carry this notion along with them to the New Testament and thence infer That Christ Jesus must needs have also as punctually determined all the Rituals of the Christian Worship Otherwise he is not faithful in his house as Moses was in his for that Scripture is brought to prove it That all absolutely Necessaries are so determined by our Saviour we readily grant them and that all those Rites that are prescribed by him are necessary to be observed we will yield them but that nothing is lawful but what is to be found so prescribed we utterly deny and they will never be able to prove Nor indeed would they ever have been led by any principle of reason to think of or expect such a thing had it not been by the aforesaid prejudice But having gotten that notion into their heads they will fancy the New Testament to comply with it or writhe it to their sense though with never so much violence Of affinity with the former is another Notion of theirs That all Princes and Law-givers are bound to conform the Municipal Laws of their several Dominions to the Institutions of Moses and where this is not done sc where Princes make other Decisions of Cases or appoint other Punishments than that Law allows they are in danger to have their Constitutions declared null and themselves irreligious This is a mistake as wide as the former highly injurious to Soveraign Princes and dangerous to Kingdoms and States in a great measure disannulling the publick Laws and stripping the Governours of all proper Legislative power But that which I consider now in this mistake is not the consequence and Effects but the rise and Causes of it which seems to be no other than the fondness the Jews had to their Laws and which they express in their Writings as if those Laws God gave them by Moses were not only best for them but best in themselves also The foundation of which Error is both detected and confuted by this consideration That God was not only the God but the temporal Prince of the Jews in a peculiar manner so as he is not of any other people in the world he calls himself their King appoints his Lieutenants and Vicegerents divides his Subjects their Inheritance gives them Laws takes up a Residence amongst them appoints their way of Address to him for Judgement and resolution of weighty and extraordinary Cases and reserves many Cases to himself and sometimes inflicts Punishments by his own hand Any man that considers these things well will never go about to make those Laws oblige other Nations or require necessarily all Princes to conform their Policies to that of Judaea till he can perswade himself that every Nation hath the peculiar Priviledge of the Jews and its Government to be a Theocracy A third Instance shall be their notion of Excommunication which they hold must be denounced by a Synod or Presbytery and the Prince as well as the people must be subject to the sentence And this against all Rules of Government the Prerogatives of Princes and the Peace of Kingdoms But because it was thus amongst the Jews or at least some of the Writers of that Nation say so whether true or false is not well considered therefore this is the only Gospel way I must by no means omit their Superstition about the Lords Day which must be called a Sabbath too though such name is no where given it either in the New Testament or in any antient Writer that I know of but contrariwise alwayes opposed to it But that 's the least matter The Lords Day with these men must have all the nicety of observation that the Jewish Sabbath had and which is yet worse such observation thereof made one of the principal parts of Religion And because God appointed the Sabbath amongst the Jews to be a sign between him and them and to distinguish them from all other people therefore in the New Testament the superstitious observation of the Lords Day must be the principal Character of a godly man He that considers well this matter can find no original of it but perfect Judaism introduced into Christianity And methinks any unprejudiced man should be convinced of this by this one observation That this kind of observation of the Lords Day distinguishes this sort of English Protestants from all other Protestants
her In order to which I will therefore briefly and plainly describe the true notion of Schism In hopes that when men shall understand wherein the guilt of it lyes they will avoid the evil as well as abominate the consequence Schism is a voluntary departure or separation of ones self without just cause given from that Christian Church whereof he was once a member or Schism is a breach of that Communion wherein a man might have continued without sin First I call it a Departure or Separation from the Society of the Church to distinguish it from other sins which though they are breaches of the Laws of our Religion and consequently of the Church yet are not a renunciation of the Society For as there may be a sickly infirm nay an ulcerous member and yet a member of the body So there may be such a person who for his wickedness deserves well to be cast out of the Church as being a scandal and dishonour to it yet neither separating himself nor being cast out of the Society remains still a member of it Now what it is that imports a mans separation of himself or departure from the Church we shall easily understand for it is no more but this When a man shall either expresly declare that he doth renounce such a Society or shall refuse to joyn in the acts and exercises of Religion used by such a Society and to submit to its Authority So he separates that refuses Baptism the Lord Supper or to submit unto the Censures of a Church and sufficiently declares that he owns himself no longer of it Secondly I call it a Voluntary Separation to distinguish sin from punishment or Schism from Excommunication For though the last makes a man no member of a Church yet it is supposed involuntary and he doth not make himself so Thirdly I call it a departure from a particular Church of Christ or from a part of the visible Church to distinguish it from Apostasie which is a casting off of the whole Religion the name and profession of Christianity and not only the particular Society but the Schismatick is he that retaining the Religion in general or at least a pretence of it changes his Society associates himself with or makes up some other body in opposition to that whereof he formerly was Fourthly I add those words whereof he was a member because Schism imports division and making two of that which was but one before And so Turks Pagans Jews cannot be called Schismaticks having never been of the Church These things I suppose are all generally agreed of The only difficulty is in that which I subjoyn in these words an unnecessary separation or without just cause or to separate from that Society wherein I may continue without sin And here we meet with opposition on both sides some defining too strictly and others extending too far the causes of Separation Of the first sort are the Zealots of the Church of Rome who scarcely allow any thing as a sufficient cause of Separation for being conscious of so many and great Corruptions in their Church they know they can scarce allow any thing as a just cause of Separation that will not be in danger to be used against themselves and justifie the recession of all Protestants from them But on the other side some Protestants make the causes of Separation as many and as light as the Jews did of Divorce almost for any matter whatsoever Josephus put away his Wife as himself tells us because she was not mannerly enough another his because he saw a handsomer than she a third his because she drest not his dinner well As these Jews did by their Wives so do many Christians by the Church One likes not her dress another thinks her too costly in her ornaments a third phansies some German beauty or other that he hath seen in his travails and all to make way for new Amours upon very slender pretences repudiate their former choice But as our Saviour when the Case was put found out a middle way betwixt allowing Divorce for no cause at all and for every cause so ought it to be done in this business of Schism To hit this mark therefore I say that then and then only is there just cause of Separation when Perseverance in the Communion of such a Church cannot be without sin that is when she shall impose such Laws and terms of Society as cannot be submitted to without apparent breach of the Divine Law And upon this foundation I doubt not but we shall quit our selves well on both sides that is both justifie our Recession from the Church of Rome and demonstrate the unwarrantableness of this Separation of the Protestants of this Kingdom from the Communion of the Church of England For it 's plain on the one hand that it cannot be sin to separate when it is sin to communicate since no Laws of men can abrogate or dissolve the obligation of the express Laws of God And on the other it is as plain that Schism being so great a sin and of so extream bad consequence that which must acquit me of the guilt of it in my separation can be nothing less than equal danger on the other hand and that when I may persevere without sin it must of necessity be a sin to separate upon inferiour dislikes This methinks is so plain that I wonder any doubt should be admitted of in the case Notwithstanding because I observe some men think to wash their hands of the imputation of Schism upon other terms as namely Although a Church shall not require or impose such conditions of Communion as are expresly sinful yet if she shall require indifferent unnecessary or at most suspected things that in this case there is enough to excuse the person that shall separate from a participation of this sin And also because this opinion bears it self up by the great name of Mr. Hales as his declared judgement in a little Tract of Schism now very much in the hands of men I will therefore for the clearing of this matter say these three things 1. I willingly acknowledge that such a Church as shall studiously or carelesly clog her Communion with unnecessary burdensome and suspected conditions is very highly to blame yet is it neither burdensomness nor every light suspicion of sin but a plain necessity or certainty of sin in complyance that can justifie my Separation forasmuch as I cannot be discharged from a plain duty but by an equal plainness of the sin And for this phrase suspected it is so loose and uncertain that there is no hold of it men will easily suspect what they have no mind to and Suspicion having this priviledge we shall quickly evacute every uneasie duty and instead of guiding our selves by Gods Word and sound reasoning we shall give our selves up to the conduct of Passion Melancholy and Secular Interest 2. If the non-necessity of some of the terms of Communion be a warrant of
there was just ground for our Recession for as I said it could not be sin to depart when it was so to continue And it is a very reasonable choice rather to be condemned by them of Singularity than to be damned for Company But now it is quite otherwise in the Church of England No man here parts with his Faith upon his Conformity no man is bound to give away his Reason and common Sense for quietness sake No man needs to hazard the Peace of a good and well instructed Conscience for the Peace of the Church No man is tempted to renounce his Integrity but may be as good and holy a man as he will and the more of that the better Church-man This Church keeps none of her Children in an uncomfortable estate of darkness but teaches the true knowledge of God and Christ sincerely and very advantageously She hath no half Communions nor debarrs any of her members of the priviledge and comfort of Christs Institutions She recommends the same Faith and the same Scriptures that all Protestants are agreed in The same God and only he is worshipped the same rules of holy Life are propounded as well as the same hopes and happiness expected By this brief representation the difference between the Church of Rome and the Protestants appears so wide and vast that they agree neither in their Creed nor Object of Worship nor Sacraments nor Rules of Life On the other side the agreements of Protestants with the Church of England is so full and perfect that they have not only the same God and Christ but the same object of Worship the same way of Devotion in a known Tongue the same Sacraments and same rule of life which certainly are all the great things that the Consciences of men are concerned in A man might therefore justly wonder these things being so what should make a breach and what place there is for contention or what can remain considerable enough to occasion the dissatisfaction to provoke the animosity to countenance that distance that is between us And I verily believe it would be hard for a stranger to this Church and Nation that understood the state of the case thus far to guess what should be the bone of contention amongst us I will now as well as I can both saithfully and briefly recite the matters of difference And I must needs confess if we number them only they are many But if we weigh them not only against the things we are agreed in but against peace and agreement it self I perswade my self they will be very light But that I must leave to the judgement of the Reader The things themselves are these and such as these Whether such Prayers shall make up the body of the publick Liturgy as have been conceived by the Governours of the Church and used ever since the Reformation or such as shall pro re nata be occasionally indited by every private Minister Or which perhaps is much the same whether such words expressions and phrases shall be continued in the publick Service as are by long use grown familiar to and intelligible by vulgar people or such shall come in their room as are more modern and grateful to nicer Ears About the several postures of Standing Kneeling and Sitting and whether some one of these be more decorous and accommodate to some part of Gods Worship than another and which to which About observation of Dayes and Times as whether the Anniversaries of the Birth Death and Resurrection of our Saviour and other great passages of the Gospel be of use and fit to be observed And whether some special Time of Abstinence and Mortification in conformity to the Primitive Church may now be retained or not About Habits and Garments such as Gown Surplice c. whether the habit used in ministration in the time of King Edward be not now as lawful as any other About the Ceremony of the Cross in Baptism whether whilest it is declared not essential to Baptism it may not upon other considerations be used in that Sacrament Or lastly which I think is as important as any of the rest whether Subordinacy of the Clergy in the Episcopal way or Co-ordinacy and Parity in the Presbyterian be rather to be preferred Most of the Disputes we have amongst us are either upon these questions or reducible to these or at least of like nature with these Now how inconsiderable these things are in themselves and how fit to be made a Sacrifice to Peace I forbear to say till I have in the second place shewn as I promised that something must be forgone for it 2. It was a worthy and memorable saying of Erasmus Mihi sanè adeò invisa est discordia ut veritas etiam displiceat seditiosa He did not only suspect that Proposition was not true that was not also peaceable but he thought Peace not too dear at the price of some Truth And he that pretends so high a value for the latter as to have no esteem for the former neither understands the one nor the other Greg. Nazianz. puts this Question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and answers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That peace is not only the most beautiful flower in the Garden of Christianity but also the most soveraign and useful Though it be commonly dealt with as some famed beauty admired and courted but not espoused The Apostle when Rom. 12. 18. he so passionately exhorts If it be possible and as far as in you lyes have peace with all men surely did not mean that we should only accept of Peace when it is offered us for nothing or be quiet till we can pick a quarrel but that we should be at some cost to purchase it and part with something for it and deny our selves something which but upon that account we might lawfully have enjoyed It is true we may buy Gold too dear and so we must have done our Peace if we sought it at the hands of those Hucksters of the Church of Rome as I shewed before But that we cannot reasonably expect it for nothing in any Society in the World I think is demonstratively evident by this one consideration That there are scarcely any intellectual Menaechmi I mean hardly any two persons perfectly of the same apprehension or stature of understanding in the whole world So much difference there is in mens Constitutions such diversity of Education such variety of Interests and Customs and from hence so many kinds of Prejudices and various Conceptions of things that he that resolves to yield to no body can agree with no body and consequently cannot be happy in any Church or Society on this side of Heaven There indeed some think mens minds shall be all of one capacity but whatever be the truth in that particular I much doubt whether those persons will ever make up that society of the Church Triumphant that think themselves bound to disturb the state of the Church Militant unless all things
all these objections start up and new Models set up for themselves which if they had been the effect of light and knowledge must have proceeded gradually in proportion to that and increased by time and deliberation but this is so far from being the case that it is scarce if at all possible to find any objection that is not much elder than he that makes it 2. Thanks be to God some Non-conformists daily come over to the Church and those not of the meanest Character for ability or piety but let them bragg of any one if they can find him that hath since the resetlement of the Church at His Majesties Restauration apostatized to them Now they must be horribly uncharitable that can conclude either all those that continue in the Church Ignorant or those that return to it Hypocritical and if they do not judge so they confess the matters in difference to be not certainly evil but that prejudice hath made them seem so 3. That there are men of as clear Understanding as good Life and as comfortable Consciences in the Society of this Church as are any where else to be found and if so which Impudence it self hath not the face to deny then there is no capital error in its constitution since those three answer to the whole design of Christianity and it can never be that there should be danger that neither troubles the Conscience with fears nor displayes it self in a bad Life nor is discoverable by an honest heart and sound understanding 4. The things objected against this Church are but at most disputable matters because all wise and good men are not agreed upon them But that which is sub judice and yet under dispute cannot be called Evil till the dispute is ended and the decision made against it 5. And lastly the things scrupled in this Church are such as the like may be found and complained of in any Church of the whole world at least since the Apostles times Now if these things be true as I am confident they will appear upon impartial consideration then are the matters of our difference such as I have supposed namely of no greater value than that we may forgo our private opinion phancy and custome in and concerning them for the Peace of the Church And if we resolve not to unite our selves to the Church whilest there is any thing of this nature to discontent us it is too much to be feared that Peace will for ever be hid from our eyes But to prevent that let me here prevent my self in one thing that will fall in more opportunely hereafter viz. That since there is no grand matter of Religion concerned in the Controversies between us nor any violation of the Laws of God in our complying with the Laws of this Society and since either Mahomet must go the Mountain or the Mountain must come to Mahomet i. e. one side or other must yield we will be perswaded to think it reasonable that the Subject should submit to the Governour and Opinion give place to antient Custome and Novelty to the Laws in being CHAP. IV. That those that find fault with the Constitution of this Church will never be able to find out or agree upon a better IT was seasonable advice which a Member of the Long Parliament is said to have propounded then when all were for pulling down and Desolation was called Reformation That they should do well to let the old Building stand till they had Materials in readiness and were agreed upon a model of a Fabrick to be set up in the stead of what they destroyed And not unlike was the Gloss of the Lord Bacon upon the words of the Prophet Jeremy Chap. 6. 16. Stand upon the wayes and inquire for the good way c. that is saith he Inquire for a better way but stand upon the old wayes till you have discovered it And agreeably Mr. Selden Accuratius circumspiciendae viae omnes de semitis antiquis consulendum quae vero sit optima seligenda And these sayings are not more valuable for their weight or elegancy nor for the reputation of their Authors than considerable in our case We confess generally the old way of the Church of England to be right for the main but certain Circumstantials are uneasie to some of us and they till those are redrest will proceed no further But it 's reasonable then we should be able to agree upon and produce a better Model lest instead of having a new Church we have no Church at all For First It can never be thought by wise men that such a Society as a Church can be conserved without some Rites or other forasmuch as no petty Corporation or Company can nor that God can be worshipped without all Circumstance at least by men that have Bodies and are bound to glorifie him with their Bodies as well as Souls 2. It is as plain that neither any Society can continue or any publick Worship be performed if all Ceremonies and circumstances such as of time place persons and the like be left indefinite and undetermined for who shall know whom to obey whom to hear where to assemble or where to meet if these be not defined 2. If therefore there must be some determination in Circumstantials it must be made either by God or Man And whether God hath made any such determination in the case we will now consider and the rather because this is made a popular Theme to declaim upon against the Church and jus divinum is boldly instamped upon those Models that have been designed to supplant it Indeed in the Old Testament so far as concerned the Temple at Jerusalem and the Worship there to be performed God was very particular in his directions And we blind as we are may discern plain reason for so doing because both the one and the other I mean the Temple and the Worship to be performed thereat were Mystical and Figurative and designed by Typical representations to lead that people into some apprehension of those things that were not then plainly revealed but were afterwards to be exhibited in the times of the Gospel Now if it had been lawful for the Jews to have innovated or made alterations in those things whereof they understood not the reasons they must of necessity have mis-guided themselves and God had lost the principal end of those institutions For since as I said they had no sufficient and clear knowledge of the things typified the change in the Rites which people so in the dark were likely to make must of necessity have led them further beside the mark God aimed at as a Copy the more removes it is from the Original draught is likely to have less of the Life and so the effect would have been that by those alterations they would not have left themselves so much as the shadow to guide them to the knowledge of the substance or body But in their Synagogue Worship it is very
very readily hearkened to But as they past a Doom upon any one he approves the Sentence but before the execution perswades them to bethink themselves of another and better man to be in his Room since a Senate they could not be without But here the business stuck as he had foreseen it would the people who agreed unanimously against the old Senator could by no means accord who should succeed one named this person and another that but whosoever was named by one party was rejected by another that in conclusion as great a pique as they had conceived against the old Senate for want of agreement in better men to fill their places they were constrained to continue them in I only make this application of the Story That it is easie and obvious to find fault with things present but not so to find better for the future And till that can be done 't is neither just to call any thing evil that is the best of its kind nor done like wise men to quarrel with a Church for some infirmities which we know the worst of by long experience lest thereby we come to have either none at all or such an one as may give us cause sadly to repent our choice CHAP. V. That God layes very little stress upon Circumstantials in Religion TO make that which we have hitherto discoursed the more clear and convictive and to ease the minds of men of their scrupulosities and superstitious fears let it be considered in the next place That even then when God Almighty did with the most punctuality prescribe the Ceremonies and Circumstantials of Religion he never laid such stress upon them but that so long as the main of Religion was provided for and the substance of his Institutions observed Alterations might be and were made in those lesser matters without his offence And if this be made appear it will tend to beget in men better notions of God and better measures of Religion as well as dispose them to Conformity to the Church of England For they will have no reason to think of God as a captious Deity that watches advantages against his Creatures nor make Religion a piece of nice scrupulosity and consequently will neither swallow Camels nor strain at Gnats but serve God with the generosity of a free and a comfortable mind Now to this purpose it will not be unuseful to take notice of a distinction mentioned by Maimonides That the Jews acknowledge some things in their Law to be primae intentionis and some things secundae That there were some things God required for themselves as being intrinsecally good and that other things were only required for the sake of and in order to the former The first kind that were essentially good were also absolutely necessary and never could be otherwise such as we call moral Duties The latter kind were of so indifferent a nature as that not only they might not have been commanded but also having been commanded they may in some cases not be a Duty An instance whereof though the Jews were a great while before they understood it and soundly smarted for their Ignorance is that Maxim they have now generally received Periculum vitae dissolvit Sabbatum But the fullest instance of the kind is that which is remembred by Mr. Selden in his Book de jure Naturali Gentium lib. 2. cap. 10. That in case of sickness a Jew might not only eat such meats as were otherwise forbidden but say they for the recovery of his health or avoidance of any great danger he might break any Precept save only those Three great ones against Idolatry Murder and Incest But these things come not home to my purpose only I note them to shew that that superstitious people had some general notice that God did not so precisely animadvert in little matters so the great were minded That which I choose to insist upon for the evidencing of this Observation is the Passeover which was a great Sacrament instituted by God himself upon weighty reasons made a Statute for ever throughout their generations and the soul that observed it not was to be cut off from among his people Exod. 12. And in the eleventh verse of that Chapter the most minute circumstances are defined amongst other that they should eat the Passeover with staves in their hands shoos on their feet and their loins girt by which expressions is plainly intimated and accordingly they understood and practised that they should eat it in the posture of standing Nevertheless it is well known that when they were come into the Land of Canaan to setled habitations they eat it sitting or lying according to the usual custome of feasting in those Countreys And this change continued all along till the times of our Saviour without any reproof from God and our Saviour himself conforms to them herein and in the same posture eats the Passeover with his Disciples Now this is the rather observable because whenas the posture enjoyned by God was symbolical of the haste in which they went out of Aegypt They in the change aforesaid instituted a Ceremony which was symbolical too but quite of another matter namely of the rest and peace God had now given them in the good Land of Canaan And all this alteration made upon prudential considerations and the reason of the thing without any warrant from God for their direction or check for the change Let us take another Instance Though God had so carefully described the Circumstances of the Temple-worship as I have shewed before and the especial reasons of so doing yet we find David distributing the Priests into Orders for the conveniency of their Ministration which might have been called an Innovation in Religion but besides that he institutes instrumental Musick to be used in the Worship of God without any Commission from God that appears And yet this novelty also was so far from incurring any reprehension that it was thenceforward constantly retained and made use of I might for the fuller Evidence of this notion observe That though God had with great solemnity instituted Sacrifices as the means of propitiating his Divine Majesty towards sinful men and had with great accuracy prescribed the Laws thereof yet he puts a great slight upon all of that nature as a thing he regarded not in comparison with the substantial points of Virtue and Obedience Particularly Psal 50. v. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices c. v. 14. Offer to God the sacrifices of righteousness As if he had said Let me have these latter and I shall not much complain for defect of the former But especially Micah 6. 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or ten thousands of rivers of Oyl c. but he hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God For a full explication of all which and
that Decree in complyance with them whereby they abridged the Gentiles of the exercise of a considerable part of their Christian Liberty in meer condescension to the Jews but after such time as the Jews might have been sufficiently instructed but remained incurable and obstinate then this Indulgence grew into desuetude and the Gentiles resumed their due liberty From the same consideration was it that St. Paul as I also observed before practised Circumcision in the case of Timothy which he otherwise declared useless and dangerous And again upon the same grounds did the Apostolical Canons enjoyn the observation of the Jewish Sabbath as well as the Lords Day and several other things were both acted by private Christians and decreed by the Authority of Councils in favour of the Jews till they appeared no longer pittiably weak and ignorant but contumacious and intractable And as the Elder Christians did by the Jews so seems the Great Constantine to have done by the Pagans He considered that those that had beèn all their life-time kept in the darkness of Gentilism could not presently bear so great a light as Christianity Therefore though he zealously recommended it yet he did not presently make it penal not to be a Christian but for a time gave every one leave to be of what Religion he would to choose his own God and his own way of Worship In the mean time care was taken that all should have opportunity of understanding the truth if they would which when they had enjoyed for a competent time he then requires all the Roman Empire to imbrace Christianity This last instance I confess fits not the very matter we have in hand which is touching things in their own nature indifferent But it agrees with the general reason of proceeding which is sufficient to my purpose But now after all this if people will not be instructed but shall be so ridiculous as to pride themselves in their folly and glory to continue weak when they may be strong that is will affect Ignorance to countenance Disobedience I see no obligation upon the Magistrate either to forbear to make or execute such Laws as he apprehends for the good of his Government as I said before And so I hope I have cleared this point That though a Tender Conscience hath its Priviledges yet it hath not such a Prerogative as to null the Laws or suspend the Power of the Magistrate in the Sphere of Religion And therefore this pretence will be no longer an excuse for mens Non-conformity to the Laws and Church of England CHAP. IX The great dishonour that disobedience to Laws and Magistrates and the distractions of Government do to any Profession of Religion whatsoever HAving as I think sufficiently demonstrated the sin and mischiefs of Schism and evacuated all the excuses and palliations of it from the plea of Christian Liberty or the pretence of Tender Conscience I cannot see what should remain able to perpetuate our distractions unless it be a point of honour that some think themselves obliged to persevere because they have begun A humour like that Tull notes and taxes in the Stoicks That when Arguments failed them Constancy supplyed that defect and that they were not deserted of their Courage when they were destitute of Reason It is I confess too common with men to the intent that they may not seem to have had a bad and indefensible Cause at first they will indeavour to give it reputation by the courage and constancy of the Defendants whereby they hope to gain one of these points that either by Victory they shall have it adjudged to them or at least extort Honourable conditions to lay down Arms which is a kind of parting stakes Hereupon it is far more easie to convince men than to satisfie them because at last it comes to be a contention of Honour and Spirit and not a debate of Truth They say nothing subdues English Spirits but Cession and Condescension yield them a little and they will in Bravery and Generosity give you up all the rest but if you continue to contend they will fight not because it 's either hopeful or necessary neither because they can reasonably hope to obtain the victory nor because they must be ruined if they do not but because they cannot brook the dishonour of being vanquisht Honour is a kind of Gentile Conscience and tender like that too And I confess though it be a very virtuous yet it is no very easie thing to come about perfectly to change ones course and to proclaim ones self to have been in the wrong before to forgo a mans opinion and his reputation together wholly to yield up the cause we have long contended for without any conditions to salve our honour without abatement qualification or comprehension For though wise men will censure our obstinacy if we persist yet the multitude will reproach us with levity and cowardize if we retreat And though many a man could contentedly give up himself to the instruction of the few yet to be exposed to the contumelies of the vulgar is harsh and uneasie This consideration hath I acknowledge a great deal of Rhetorick and I doubt prevails with not a few in our present case I will therefore endeavour to shew the unreasonableness of it in these two points 1. I affirm That it is no real dishonour but a manly generosity and a Christian virtue to change our minds upon mature deliberation and the evidence of better reason Indeed to change we know not why or meerly because we are weary of old things is a vitious levity or upon new interests to espouse new perswasions is base and unworthy either of a Christian or a Man yet on the other side obstinately to maintain whatever we have asserted is as far from Christian stability and perseverance as it is from ingenuity That very temper which our Saviour requires in his Disciples and which is the preparatory disposition to the entertainment of Christianity especially consists in a simplicity of mind and an indifferency to comply with whatsoever shall best recommend it self to our faculties And whosoever is not of this disposition it was meerly by chance that he became a Christian or whatsoever opinions he hath better than any other man nothing is owing to his virtue but his fortune and he is not the better man but had the happier Education For since no man is infallible nor hath an intuitive knowledge of things he must either make himself a meer Machine to be filled and moved by others and receive without discrimination whatsoever is instilled into him by others that doth not think it becomes him to leave room for better reasons and further light in all such matters as we speak of and where Almighty God hath not once for all expresly delivered himself And those are not only the most ingenuous men but ordinarily the most useful also that are what they are not by Instinct and the prejudices of Education but by
need to learn reason of State from any body uses the Latin Christians with greater caution and severity under his Dominion than the Greek because he accounts the former alwayes dangerous upon account of their Forreign Head and Alliance 2. We cannot but observe how diligent they have been of late how full of projects and how erect their minds with expectation of some success They heretofore walked in Masquerade disguised themselves sometimes in the habit of one Sect and sometimes of another but of late they have had the confidence to lay off their disguise and play a more open game And such are the numbers of their Emissaries so desperate and daring are the Bigots of that party and so close and crafty are their Insinuations that we have little reason to think our selves out of danger especially whilest we have such Divisions and Distractions amongst our selves as at once both incourage them to attempt upon us and also furnish them with a very popular argument to use with soft-minded and weakly principled Protestants to draw them off from us namely the consideration of the Divisions in our Church and the perfect Unity in theirs For prevention of all which there seems no way so effectual as that we learn if not to submit our private quarrels to the publick Magistrate yet to publick safety lest whilest the Gamesters quarrell those that sit by sweep the stakes And certainly it's more adviseable to sacrifice our Opinions to our Safety than our Religion and Liberty to our Humours and Opinions And although blessed be God we have now a Prince to whom the Protestant Religion came sealed with his Fathers Blood and who in his own unhappy Exile had however this advantage to be well aware of the cheats and impostures as well as the designs of that Faction yet if ever it should be our fortune to have a Prince indifferent in Religion and who preferred his own quiet before the Civil or Spiritual Interests of his people the unreasonable petulancies we betray our untractableness by fair means and our endless disputes and unnecessary scrupulosities would tempt such a Prince growing weary of the burden of our unquietness and despairing otherwise of bringing us to obedience to put us under the insolence of that hard-hearted Pharaoh whose little Finger would prove heavier than the Loyns of all our present Governours and set Aegyptian Task-masters over us to break our Spirits by bitter bondage which Gods Mercy and our Wisdom for the future will I hope prevent But if we should escape both these dangers yet our Divisions and Distractions continuing there is a third danger that I do not see how it is avoidable And that is 3. Fanaticism For it is not imaginable but that the Church growing into contempt and Laws into daily neglect that things can long stand at this pass but some change or other must ensue and if Popery come not in to chastize our follies nor Atheism that damp of the bottomless Pit come over us and stifle all our life and warmth of Religion but that we must the aforesaid causes remaining and daily increasing fall into a Religious Phrensie or that raging Calenture I last named What that is and what the insufferable mischiefs of it are I need not represent It is in short instead of Church Government to have a Spiritual Anarchy where the hottest head is made the highest Governour where Pride and Impudence are the only qualifications of a Preacher where Humour is called Conscience and Novelty Religion This for ought I can see is like to be our condition if neither the Atheist nor Papist succeed in their projects But if any man shall be so fond as to hope we shall not fall thus low but may stay in Presbytery I shall say but this Let such person consider how few and inconsiderable that party is compared with the vast numbers of Quakers Ranters Fifth-Monarchy-men Anabaptists Antinomians c. and how little acceptable the Presbyterian way or interest is to any of those Factions and therefore how unlikly to be set up by their means But especially let it be remembred that when that Party had the Ball at their soot they were not able to keep it but lost it and the Goal too to those more numerous and adventurous Gamesters I therefore say again I cannot apprehend but that there must be a better union and complyance with the Church of England or I do not see it possible but we must fall into one or other of the aforesaid dangers And the calamity will then be so great which way soever we fall that I protest I think every honest minded Protestant ought to be inclined to bear with cheerfulness whatsoever burdens our Superiours can be suspected capable of imposing upon us rather than make experiment of the danger Conclusion I Have now adventured to stretch forth my hand to stay the tottering of the Ark and to cast in my Mite to the publick Treasury for the service of the Church which I hope God and Good men will accept of Of what efficacy the foregoing Considerations shall be is at the mercy of the Reader But if it please Almighty God to give him such candour and so unprejudicate a mind in the reading as I call him to witness I have been sensible of in the writing I do not then despair but they will prevail with all Englishmen that love the Protestant Religion better than their own humour to Conform to the Church and Laws establisht or at least that they shall seem of such weight as that a few scruples shall not be thought a counter-ballance to them Yet the more to assure this so desirable an Issue I will crave leave for a Conclusion humbly to recommend these following particulars 1. That all those that are zealous of the honour and interest of the Church of England will the more effectually to demonstrate the excellency of it and to stop the mouth of slander oblige themselves to a singular holiness of life Let us be ashamed that since we pretend to have and have really a better way of Religion not to have so much better Lives as we have better Principles Let us disdain that any petty Sect whatsoever should outgo us in that which is the great end of Church Society When those that bring prejudice to our publick Worship reproach it as a cold Service Let us labour to have our hearts invigorated with such a sense of Devotion by it as may not only consute the slander but maintain a spiritual heat and life of Godliness in all our conversation For let us assure our selves this is that the credit of any Profession depends upon when we have used all the Arguments and the best Vindications of our selves and our Church it is Holiness of life is the best and most prevalent Apology 2. That since for the bringing others to Conformity we must perswade them to for go some part of their natural Liberties forasmuch as otherwise they can come
under no Government whatsoever but must be either Outlaws or absolute Princes To the end I say that we may prevail with them to deny themselves in some things for the publick good we should do well to give them example in our own self-denyal and abridging our own liberty in condescension to them in such things as are not the matter of Law And that we will not outrun the Laws to contradict and vex them but comply with them in what we may without sin This is that Charity and avoiding Scandal the Apostle so earnestly recommends of which I have spoken in the Considerations And the consequence is plain If it be their duty to restrain themselves in the use of that Liberty God hath left them in complyance with the Laws and Magistrate and for the sake of publick Peace and Order then it is our duty to restrain our selves in the use of that Liberty the Laws of God and Man have left us for the sake of the same Peace and in Charity to our Brethren Besides that nothing works upon mens ingenuity like Cession and Yielding and peculiarly with Englishmen as I have heretofore observed 3. That we use no provocation or exasperation towards Dissenters nor countenance those inconsiderable persons that have no other way to shew their Zeal to the Church but by reviling and vexing those that differ from it It were good all Governours of the Church did and I hope they do imitate Memnon the General for Darius against Alexander who when he found one of his Souldiers instead of Darts casting Scoffs at the Enemy tells him You are not entertained ut maledicas sed ut pugnes For besides that this carriage where ever it is is but counted a strong argument of a weak Cause it stirs up the mud of mens passions clouds their understandings and by representing men worse than they are tempts them to be worse than they would be And if I see I shall be alwayes nosed with my former Ignorance and folly I am deprived of one of the greatest encouragements to forsake it 4. Though I have as I hope sufficiently proved in the foregoing Discourse that there is no absolute necessity of making any abatement of the Legal terms of Communion with this Church forasmuch as nothing is required or imposed by the Constitution thereof but what may be submitted to without in And therefore I will not be guilty of the presumption to prescribe to my Superiours either one way or other in that matter Yet I humbly suggest that if any such thing shall be thought fit to be done out of condescension to the Non-conformists and to gain them to the Church it may be done freely and spontaneously nor as extorted either by their importunity or the necessity of affairs For whatsoever is gotten the latter way is not accounted yielded but won nec amicos parat nec inimicos tollit it passes no obligation upon men but rather incourages their importunity and confirms their obstinacy And there is nothing that wise men do or ought to resent more than the miscarriage of their favours since thereby they lose not only what they grant but their reputation too The Council of Trent therefore would hearken to no terms nor Propositions on the behalf of the Protestants lest they should by some few drops of Concession increase their thirst of more But had they had as much of the innocency of the Dove as of the subtilty of the Serpent or been as sincere as they were wise in their generation they should have prevented all importunities by a liberal Grant of what was fit and just and by such an act of Goodness and Charity they might either have wrought upon the ingenuity and moderated the heat of the other Party or at least having done what became them they should then have had good ground peremptorily to have refused whatsoever should have been arrogantly demanded But they as I have said wisely enough in their way considering that if they once came to acknowledge any thing due to the Protestants must be forced upon the same terms to yield them more than they were willing to part with and indeed little less than the whole resolved therefore to yield nothing at all But as the case of our Church is not like theirs so there is no necessity we should make use of the same Politicks for where there is nothing sinful in the Constitution nothing can be required to be abated but upon the terms of Prudence and Compassion and if it shall happen that those Arguments be thought fit to be heard it is great pitty in that case that the resolution should not be so carried as that it may be evident to all that those causes only had influence upon the effect If these things be considered by those that favour the Church and the foregoing Considerations be impartially weighed by the Protestant Dissenters from it I for my part shall conceive good hope that the Clergy of England shall recover its antient and due Veneration our Churches be better filled than the Conventicles a blessed Symphony in our publick Prayers and an Universal Peace Love and Good-will be restored in this divided and distracted Church and Nation Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. FINIS Lib. 3. 26. cap. de false sap Orat. 1. Rom. 1. 8. Acts 8. 4. Mr. Calv. Ep. 118 119. 1 Cor. 3. 4. De unitati Eccles