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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44196	The judgment of the late Lord Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale, of the nature of true religion, the causes of its corruption, and the churches calamity by mens additions and violences with the desired cure : in three discourses / written by himself at several times ... ; humbly dedicated to the honourable judges and learned lawyers ... by the faithful publisher, Richard Baxter ; to which is annexed the judgment of Sir Francis Bacon ... and somewhat of Dr. Isaack Barrows on the same subject.	Hale, Matthew, Sir, 1609-1676.; Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626.; Barrow, Isaac, 1630-1677.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing H247; ESTC R11139	41,043	77

those Opinions or Perswasions when they must thereby in effect subscribe to such Epithetes and Appellations before all the world and of all things in the world men can with the least patience bear reflection upon their intellectuals and are most irreconcilable to them that traduce or abuse them therein 2. It greatly disadvantageth the Cause as well as the Persons of those that use this method amongst sober indifferent Observers who will be ready to conclude them a parcel of people transported by passions weak and prejudicated and look upon such a Cause as is maintained by railing scoffing raillery and unproved Calumnies as weak and standing in need of such rudenesses to support and maintain it 3. It exposeth Religion it self to the derision of Atheists and confirms them in their Atheisms and gains them too many Proselytes and that principally upon these Reasons 1. Because they find that Clergy-men do tell them in the Pulpits that Christ himself and his Appostles condemned railing scandalous Appellation as Raca and Fool Evil-speaking foolish-jeasting Mocking Reviling This they tell men and they tell them truly and yet these very men that call themselves Ministers of Christ Messengers of the Gospel of Peace take that admirable liberty of reproaching scoffing and deriding one another in their publick Pamphlets and Discourses that can scarce be exampled among the most invective Ranks of Persons whose trade it is to be Satyrical and render people ridiculous Nay so far hath this Excellent manage prevail'd among Clergy-men that their Scoffs and Reproaches are not levelled at the Persons or Personal Defects of Dissenters but rather than want supports for their Party will have ugly flings at Religion it self at Scripture expressions and when men see such a course of Practice among the Preachers and Clergy-men they are ready to conclude that surely they believe not themselves what they preach to others therefore think they have a fair pretence not to believe them 2. But principally these great Animosities and Transports of dissenting Clergy-men confirms and promotes Atheisme upon this account that the things about which this wonderful hate is strucken between these Parties are such as both Parties agree to be none of the Fundamentals of the Religion professed by both but Accessaries and Accessions and such indeed as By-standers think are of very small moment and yet when men see so much heat and passion so much fervour and contention such reproaches and revilings such exasperations of Authority on either Party such mutual Prosecutions one of another that more could not possibly be done between Dissenters in those points which both agree to be Fundamental Atheistical spirits are apt to conclude that probably those points that both sides supposed to be of greater moment are ejusdem farinoe with those in Contest since they are not nor cannot be prosecuted with greater fervour than these which all men take to be small and inconsiderable and that it is Interest Vain-glory and Applause or some other Temporal Concern that gives this Fervour and Zeal in Matters of Religion more than the true Concerns of it self The Conclusion therefore is That men for their own sakes and for the sake and honour of the Christian Religion would use more Temperance Prudence and Moderation in Contests about Circumstantials Sir Francis Bacon Lord Verulam Viscount St. Albans and Lord Chancellor after in his Advertisement of the Controversies of the Church of England pag. 138. of his Works THe wrongs of them who are possessed of the Government of the Church towards the other may hardly be dissembled or excused They have charged them as tho' they denyed tribute to Coesar and withdrew from the Civil Magistrate the obedience which they have ever performed and taught I have oft transcribed Bishop Andrews Confident Assertion of the Loyalty of those then called Puritans against the Papists accusation in his Tortura Torti They have sorted and coupled them with the Family of Love whose Heresie they have labour'd to destroy and confute They have been swift of Credit to receive accusations against them from those that have quarrelled with them but for speaking against sin and Vice Their Accusations and Inquisitions have been strict Swearing men to Blanks and Generalities not included within compass of Matter certain Which the Party which is to take the Oath may Comprehend to be a thing captious and streinable Their urging Subscription to their own Articles is but Lacessere irritare morbos Ecclesiae Which otherwise would spend themselves Non Consensum quoerit sed dissidium qui quod factis proestatur in verbis exigit He seeketh not Unity but Division who exacteth that in words which we are content to yield in Action And it is true that there are some who I am perswaded will not easily offend by inconformity who notwithstanding make some Conscience to subscribe For they know this Note of Inconstancy and Defection from what they have long held shall dissable them to do that good which otherwise they might do For such is the weakness of many that their Ministry should be thereby discredited As for their easie silencing them in so great scarcity of Preachers it is to Punish the People and not Them Ought they not I mean the Bishops to keep one eye open to look upon the good that the men do but to fix them both upon the hurt that they suppose cometh by them Indeed such as are Intemperate and Incorrigible God forbid they should be permitted to preach But shall every inconsiderate word somtimes captiously watched and for the most part hardly enforced be as a forfeiture of their Voice and Gift in preaching As for sundry particular molestations I take no pleasure to recite them If a Minister shall be troubled for saying in Baptisme Do you believe for Dost thou believe If another shall be call'd in question for praying for her Majesty without the additions of her Stile Whereas the very Form of Prayer in the Common-prayer-book hath Thy servant Elizabeth and no more If a third shall be accused on these words uttered touching the Controversies Tollatur Lex ut fiat certamen whereby was meant that the prejudice of the Law removed eithers reasons should be equally compared of calling the people to Sedition and Mutiny as if he had said Away with the Law and try it out with Force If these and other like particulars be true which I have but by Rumor and cannot affirm it is to be lamented that they should labour among us with so little Comfort The wrath of man worketh not the Righteousness of God Thus far this conformable Learned Lawyer The said Lord Verulam in his Considerations for the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England Pag. 180. c. of his Works He first answers the Objection that It is against good Policie to Innovate any thing in Church-matters And praising the Church addeth pag. 182. But for the Discipline and Orders of the Church as many and the Chief of

The Judgment of the late LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Sir Matthew Hale Of the Nature of TRUE RELIGION THE CAUSES of its CORRUPTION And the Churches Calamity by Mens ADDITIONS and VIOLENCES With the desired Cure In three Discourses written by himself at several times Humbly Dedicated to the Honourable Judges and Learned Lawyers who knew and honoured the Author because in their true Sentiments of Religion and its Depravations and the Cure the wellfare of England under his Majesty as well as their own is eminently concerned By the faithful Publisher RICHARD BAXTER To which is annexed the Judgment of Sir Francis Bacon Lord Verulam St. Albans and Chancellour of England And somewhat of Dr. Isaack Barrows on the same subject Mat. 5. 9. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Rom. 14. 17 18. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men LONDON Printed for B. Simmons at the three Cocks near the West-end of S. Paul's Church 1684. A PREFACE With some Notes on these Discourses by the Publisher THe Publishing of these Discourses sheweth the great mutability of such weak understandings as my own Till very lately no Price could have hired me to Publish them lest it were a Violation of his Testament which saith that he would have no Writings of his Published but what in his Life Time he gave to be Published And he delivered not these in his Life Time to me In my ignorance this satisfied me But lately opening the Case to some Lawyers of known Eminence Honour and Integrity they have convinced me that I cross his Will and the Common good by my Suppressing them The Case is this When he was gone from us in great Weakness to the Place of his Death in my last Letter to him I told him how much good the Lord Bacon's Book called Considerations of Matters Ecclesiastical had done with many that too justly suspect Clergy Contenders of Partiality and that the Honour and Just Esteem that God had given him with all sorts of Men he owed to the Service of him that gave it And therefore knowing the doleful Case of this Land as div vided and striving about Religion I intreated him that he would Write his Judgment briefly and freely of the Cause and Cure The rather because his Contemplations were so acceptable to many In his last Letter answering this He professeth that those Contemplations were Printed without his Purpose Knowledge or Consent but thanks God if they did good though beyond his intent But though the rest be full of kindness I will not Publish it lest really it should violate his Will But when he was dead he who Published his Contemplations shewed me a Bag of his Mannuscripts small occasional Tractates and gave me out these three saying that They were directed For Mr. Baxter By which I knew they were by him given me in answer to my foresaid Letter which Craved the Publication of his Judgment of our Divisions But I conjecture they had been long before written by him at several Times and much to the same purpose and so I suppose that he gave them me and left the use of them to my Discretion Now say these Learned Lawyers A man may have several Wills in Writing in reference to several Things not repugnant but consistent and all shall stand and be taken as his last Will and may make several Executors and give them several distinct Powers And clausula generalis non porrigitur ad ea quae Specialiter nominantur And this Direction to you on that Occasion maketh it a Legacy bequeathed to you And the answering your Letter by it sheweth to what use And his after likeing of the publishing his Contemplations sheweth that he was not utterly against appearing in Print By this and much more they Satisfie me that it was my Ignorance that made me resolve to Conceal them I confess the Deliverer thought it best for me to make one Treatise out of them all Because being not intended for Publication at the Writing of them the same thing is repeated especially in two of them And that Repetition and the Brevity made me long undervalue them But I take it as an intollerable piaculum to put any altering hand of mine to the Writings of such a Man which I profess I have not done in adding expunging or changing one Word save some false spelling of the Scribe for only the Latin Verses and an enterlining or two are his own hand which I know by many a Sheet that I have had from him And as long as the Occasion of the Writing them is known I think it no dishonour to them to have these Repetitions At least not so much as my alterations would be Yea it is useful first as sully shewing the Readers that these are no hasty crude conceptions but matters that long and deeply dwelt in his heart 2. And Great matters specially to dull or unwilling or negligent Readers or hearers must be oft repeated for a Transient touch passeth away from such without any Effect O that the matter of these three Papers were Written and spoken an hundred times if it would make Rulers and Teachers and People once truly to consider and receive them as they deserve Yet upon oft perusal I find that the Repetition is joyned with variety of inference and Application And he hath too Queasy a Stomach that will Nauseate them in so short discourses on so great a Subject so necessary to a People dissolving by wilfull Divisions by the delusion of Abaddon that is commonly Painted with a Cloven Foot I shall add the Contents for the Readers help But I shall not presume to animadvert on the matter save in these few Notes 1. Tract 1. pag. 3. I suppose by Common assistances he meaneth not that which All men have But which is not Miraculous and all that rightly seek may hope for P. 7. Some of the Controversies which he Judged undeterminable I have Cause to think he at least came nearer to satisfaction in after the Writing of these Papers as he signified to me on some Discourse specially after the reading my Catholick Theology Ib. Among the Points not distinctly knowable without more Revelation than we yet have of it one is what is the Real Consequence of the Baptism of Infants or its Omission But the Act of Vniformity Ejected all the Ministers of England that would not publickly declare that they Assent and Consent that It is CERTAIN BY THE WORD of God that Infants baptized dying before actual Sin are VNDOVBTEDLY saved none excepted Had the Convocation but cited that Word of God that saith this this Good man might have been kept from taking that as unknowable which every Conforming Minister in the Church is Certain of as an undoubted Article of Faith And it would have been a great kindness to the silenced

ill Effects 1. It maketh differences unreconcileable 2. It disadventages their Cause and Persons that use them with sober men 3. It exposeth Religion it self to the derisiof Atheists and increaseth such More of this evil with a Concluding Counsel to use more Temperance Prudence and Moderation in Contests about the Circumstantials of Religion p 20. 21. The Contents of the Additional Testimonies 1 THe Lord Bacons words in his Advertisement of the Controversies of the Church of England 2. His words in his Considerations for better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England Lest the Reader accuse me of omitting any part I had rather he would read all those two Treatises himself than those Scraps 3 Animadversions of the Transcriber 4. Some passages of Doctor Isaack Barrow PART I. OF RELIGION The Ends and Uses of it and the Errors of Men touching it TRUE Religion is the greatest Improvement Advantage and Priviledge of Humane Nature and that which gives it the noblest and highest Pre-eminence above other visible Creatures We may observe in many Bruit Beasts and Birds admirable Instincts Dexterities and Sagacities and in some of them some dark resemblances of Reason or Ratiocination But Religion is so appropriate to the Humane Nature that there are scarce any sort of Men but have some Religion Nor do the most subtle or sagacious Bruits afford any signs thereof as communicated to their Natures It is one of the chiefest Mercies and Blessings that Almighty God hath afforded to the Children of Men and that which signally manifests his Providential Care towards and over them that in all Ages and among all Nations he hath given to them some Means and Helps to discover unto them though in different Degrees some principal Sentiments of true Religion 1. By the secret Characters and Impressions and Structures thereof in their Minds and Consciences 2. By his Glorious and admirable Works commonly called the Works of Nature 3. By signal Providences and Providential Regiment of the World 4. By raising up Men in all Ages of great Wisdom Observation and Learning which did instruct the more ignorant in this great Concernment the Rudiments of Natural Religion 5. By Traditionary Transmission of many important Truths and Directions of Life from Ancestors to their Posterity and others Though in process of time evil Customs and evil Men did in a great measure impair and corrupt the Sentiments and Practices of Men notwithstanding these helps Therefore the same Mercy and Goodness of God for the preservation and propagation of the true Religion was pleased to substitute a more fixed and permanent means namely the Holy Scriptures or Divine Revelations committed to Writing in the Books of the Old and New Testament Though the Religion delivered in both Testaments be in substance the same yet the true Religion was more fully and plainly and distinctly delivered by Christ and his Apostles in the New Testament together also with some additional Instructions for the better preservation and propagation thereof to Mankind and divers additional Evidences to prove and manifest the truth of this Religion to procure its belief and acceptation As the Birth Miracles Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ Jesus the great Reformer of the Jewish and great Institutor of the Christian Religion so called from Christ that taught and asserted it The Christian Religion is the most perfect Rule of our Duty to God our selves and others and was designed principally for these Great Ends. 1. To restore to the Glorious God the Honour Duty and Obedience of his Creature Man teaching him to Know to Glorifie and Serve his Creator to be Thankful to him to submit to his Will to obey his Law and Command to be thankful for his Mercies to acknowledge him in all his ways to call upon him to Worship him to depend upon him to walk sincerely in his sight to admire and adore his Greatness and Goodness in all his works especially in the great work of the Redemption of Mankind by his Son Christ Jesus 2. To inable Man to attain everlasting Happiness the perpetual Vision of the Glorious God and to fit and prepare him to be a partaker of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light and Glory 3. To compose and settle Mankind in such a decent and becomingrectitude order and deportment in this World as may be suitable to the Existence of a Reasonable Nature and the Good of Mankind Which consistsprincipally in a double relation 1. To a Mans self Sobriety 2. To others which consists in those two great Habits or Disposition beneficent to Mankind viz. Righteousness or Justice and Charity or Love and Beneficence These three Great Ends are succinctly delivered Tit. 2. 11 12. For the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live Soberly Righteously and Godly in this present World Here we have these three Ends of Christian Religion 1. Godliness or our Duty to God 2. Salvation or our own everlasting Happiness 3. Sobriety Righteousness which also includeth Charity a part of Evangelical Righteousness And because Christian Religion was intended and instituted for the good of Man-kind whether Poor or Rich Learned or Unlearned Simple or Prudent Wise or Weak it was fitted with such plain easie and evident Directions both for things to be known and things to be done in order to the attainment of the End for which it was designed that might be understood by any Capacity that had the ordinary and common use of Reason or Humane Understanding and by the common assistance of the Divine Grace might be practised by them The Credenda or things to be known or believed as simply necessary to those Ends are but few and intelligible briefly delivered in that Summary of Christian Religion usually called the Apostles Creed The Agenda or things to be done or forborn are those few and excellent Precepts delivered by Christ and his Apostles in that little Book of the New Testament and yet even the tenth part of that little Book will contain all the Precepts of Christian Duty and Obedience contained in that Book And in brief the Baptismal Covenant as it is contained in the Liturgy and Explanation thereof in the Church Catechism used among us together with the Precepts of the Decalogue contain in effect a Summary or brief Epitome of our Christian Duty And certainly it was necessary and becoming the Wisdom of the most Wise God that that Religion and Doctrine which equally concerned Men of all Kinds and Capacities should be accordingly accommodated as might be useful for all If the Doctrine or Precepts of Christian Religion should have been delivered in over sublime or seraphical expressions in high Rhetorical Raptures in intricate and subtile Phrases or Stile or if it should have been surcharged with multitude of particulars it would have been like a Sealed Book to the far greatest part of Mankind who yet were equally concerned in the Business and

esteemed and partly used And if in those Ages of the Churches greatest excellency the 4 th and 5 th Centuries the great Patriarchs themselves of Alexandria Antioch Constantinople c. who are supposed by some to be the Pillars of the Church for Government and Unity did live almost in continual Conflict Cursing or casting out each other as Hereticks or Schismaticks and oft fighting it out in Christian blood to say nothing of the following worser Ages what wonder if still the old Causes succeeding produce many of the old Effects Which a man that was thought wise enough to be the Lord Chancellour of England and the famous restorer of Learning might be allowed gently to touch while the Clergy themselves openly and greatly prefer those Ages and the Theophilus's Epiphanius's and Cyrils and Episcopal Synods thereof before our own and before themselves Let us hear what one more excellent person and no Fanatick or Schismatick saith Dr. Isaack Barrow a man if ever this Age had any that delivered digested TRUTH in clear Expressions vol. 2. p. 34. Whoever indeed will consider the Nature of man or will consult obvious experience shall find that in practical matters our will or appetite hath a mighty influence on our Judgment of things causing men with great attention to regard that which they affect and carefully to mark all reasons making for it but averting from that which they dislike and making them to overlook the arguments which perswade it whence men generally do suit their opinions to their inclinations warping to that side where their INTEREST doth lye or to which their Complexions their Humor their Passions their Pleasure their ease doth sway them So that almost any Notion will seem true which is Profitable which is Safe which is Pleasant or any way grateful to them and that Notion false which in any such respect doth cross them Very few can abstract their minds from such considerations or embrace Pure Truth divested of them And those few who do so must therein most employ their Will by strong effects of Voluntary resolution and patience and disengaging their minds from those clogs and byasses This is particularly notorious in mens adhering to Parties divided in opinion which is so regulated by that sort of causes that if you do mark what any mans Temper is and where his INTEREST lyeth you may easily prognosticate on what side he will be and with what degree of Seriousness of Vigour of Zeal he will cleave thereto A timerous man you may be almost sure will be on the safer side A Covetous man will bend to that Party where Gain is to be had An Ambitious man will close with the opinion passing in Court A careless man will comply with the fashion Affection arising from Education or Prejudice will hold others stiff Few follow the results of Impartial Contemplation And pag. 483. There is one Lawgiver who can save and destroy Who art thou that Judgest another That is How intollerably Rash Unjust and arrogant art thou who settest thy self on Gods Tribunal and thence dost adventure to pronounce Doom upon his People Did we well consider Gods Judgment we should rather think it adviseable to be mindful of our own Case than to pass Sentence on that of others Observing how lyable our selves are we should scarce have a Heart to Carp at others finding what great need our actions will then have of a Favourable Interpretation we should sure be more candid and mild in Censuring other mens Actions Specially considering that by harsh Judgment of others we make our own Case worse and inflame our reckoning We directly thence incur Guilt we aggravate our own Offences and render our selves unexcusable we expose our selves on that score to Condemnation See Mat. 7. 2. Luk. 6. 37. Rom. 2. 2 3. Jam. 5. 9. His two Sermons on Ro. 12. 18. well practised would heal England's Divisions Such also is his Sermon of Love to our Neighbour that against Slander and that against Detraction But that which I cite him for is the very same description of Religion which Judge Hale giveth Serm. 1. p. 10. The Principal advantage of Wisdom is its acquainting us with the Nature and Reason of true Religion and affording Convictive Arguments to perswade the Practice of it Which is accompanied with the purest delight and attended with the most solid content imaginanable I say the Nature of Religion wherein it Consists and what it requires The mistake of which produceth daily so many mischiefs and inconveniences in the World and exposeth so good a Name to so much Reproach It sheweth it consisteth not in fair professions and glorious pretences but in Real Practice not in a pertinacious adherence to ANY Sect or Party but in a sincere Love of Goodness and dislike of Naughtiness wherever discovering it self not in Vain Ostentations and Flourishes of outward performance but in an inward good complexion of Mind exerting it self in Works of true Devotion and Charity not in a Nice Orthodoxie or Politick Subjection of our Judgments to the peremptory dictates of Men but in a sincere Love of Truth and hearty approbation and compliance with the Doctrines Fundamentally Good and Necessary to be believed Not in harsh censuring and virulently inveighing against others but in careful amending our own ways Not in a peevish crossness and obstinate Repugnancy to received Laws and Customs but in a quiet and Peaceable Submission to the express Laws of God and Lawful Commands of Men Not in a furious Zeal FOR or AGAINST trivial Circumstances but in a conscionable practising the substantial parts of Religion Not in a frequent talking or contentious disputing about it but in a ready observance of the unquestionable Rules and Precepts of it In a Word True Religion consists in nothing else but doing what becomes our Relation to God in a Conformity or similitude to his Nature and in a willing Obedience to his Holy Will to which by potent incentives it allures and perswades us by representing to us his transcendent glorious Attributes c. See the rest too long to be transcribed If you say A Papist will own all this I answer 1. So much the better We will not feign a new Christianity to differ from Papists 2. But do they not own too much more How then come they to fill the World with Blood and Division for the Sake of their numerous humane Additionals I know no man that hath more fully confuted that Sect than he hath done in his Treatise of Supremacy and Church Vnity And saith the Publisher of his Life He understood Popery both at home and abroad He had narrowly observed it Militant in England triumphant in Italy disguised in France and had earlier apprehensions of the Approaching Danger and would have appeared with the forwardest in a needful time Whoever will truly confute his Treatise of the Popes Supremacy and that of the Vnity of the Church against the Supremacy and Foreign Jurisdiction of Councils called General I here promise him shall make me a Papist of the Italian or the Galliance sort accordingly if he will do it before I die and am Disabled from reading and considering it But I doubt not but the Papists will rather study to bury it in silence while they do their works by other means than Reasoning lest the notice of a Confutation should occasion more to read it And then especially if all men in Power should read it their Cause with such is utterly undone Saith Dr. Tillotson in his Preface to it I dare say that whoever shall carefully peruse this Treatise will find that this point of the Popes Supremacy on which Bellarmine hath the confidence to say The whole of Christianity depends is not only an indefensible but an Impudent Cause as ever was undertaken by learned Pens And nothing could have kept it so long from becoming ridiculous in the judgment of Mankind but its being so strongly supported by a worldly interest For there is not one tolerable argument for it and there are a thousand invincible Reasons against it IF these three Testimonies of the most Learned Wise and Impartial Conformists that these or many Ages have bred be all born down by Interest and Supercilious Confidence and a Flood of Words which may all be used for the worst Cause in the World the Lord be Judge and justifie his Truth and that Wisdom from above Jam. 3. 17. which is justified of her Children When Satan hath done his worst Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Mat. 5. 9. FINIS * I never met with any that have forborn subscription on no greater reason than this