separation then there can be no such sin as Schism at all forasmuch as there never was nor probably ever will be such a Church as required nothing of those in her Communion but things strictly and absolutely necessary as I have shewed partly in the Introduction and could easily make appear at large through all Ages And then may the Author of the Tract about Schism securely as he doth somewhat too lightly call it only a Theological Scarcrow 3. It will be manifest to any considering person that some things are necessary to the Constitution and Administration of a particular Church that are not in themselves necessary absolutely considered And of this I will give two instances The first in the Apostles times The abstaining from things strangled and blood was by the Council at Jerusalem adjudged and declared necessary to be observed by the Gentiles in order to an accomodation betwixt them and the Jews of which I shall say more hereafter and yet I suppose scarce any body thinks the observation of that abstinence so enjoyned necessary in it self The second instance shall be Church-Government Whatever disputes there are about the several Forms of it as whether it ought to be Monarchical or Aristocratical Episcopal or Consistorial and whatever zeal for opinion may transport men to say in favour of either of them yet I suppose few or none will affirm that either of these Forms is absolutely necessary for if one be of absolute necessity the other must be absolutely unlawful and not only so but then also those that do not receive that absolutely necessary Form can be no Churches for that Society which is defective in absolutely necessaries can be no Christian Church Notwithstanding it is not only lawful to determine and define this unnecessary point but it is necessary to the constitution of every particular Church that it be defined one way or other I mean so far as concerns that Church for if this be left indifferent in this particular Church as perhaps it is in it self in the general it is manifest there can be no Superiour nor Inferiour no Governour nor governed no Order and consequently a meer Rout and no Church Therefore some things not necessary in themselves not only may but must be defined in a particular Church and consequently it will be no just exception against a Church nor excuse from Schism if we separate from that Communion because such definitions are made in it 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 IT is the custome of those that have a mind to quarrel to aggravate and heighten the causes of discontent to the end that the ensuing mischief may not be imputed to the frowardness of their temper but to the greatness of the provocation And passion is such a Magnifying-glass as is able to extend a Mole-hill to a Mountain The way of Peace therefore is to take just measures of things and as upon the account of Truth we must not make the matters of our dispute less than they are so for the sake of both Truth and Peace we ought not to make them greater Wherefore if men would be perswaded to set aside passion and calmly consider the nature and just value of those things that we in this Church are divided upon we should then be so far from seeing reason to perpetuate our distance and animosities that we should on the contrary be seized with wonder and indignation that we have hitherto been imposed upon so far as to take those things for great deformities which upon mature consideration are really nothing worse than Moles which may be upon the most beautiful face To this purpose therefore having in the former Chapter represented the nature of Schism and the guilt and mischiefs attending it I proceed now to shew the unreasonableness of the temptations to it I mean the littleness and small importance of the Objections against this Church and that neither any of them single nor all of them together can countervail the blessing of Peace or the evil of Division In order hereto I will first shew that the causes of Dissensions amongst us are not like those upon which we separated from the Roman Communion 2. That something must be given for Peace by them that will have it 3. That all the scruples and objections against this Church are not too great a price to pay for it 1. Touching the first it is said by some in heat and passion That there is as much cause for secession from this Church now as there was from the Roman in the time of our Ancestors but with no more reason than if the arguments and discourses written against a notorious Tyrant and Usurper should be turned against a good and lawful Prince As will easily be manifest if we consider the just state of the case on either hand We could not continue in the Roman Church upon any better conditions than Nahash propounded to the men of Jabesh Gilead 1 Sam. 11. to put out our right Eyes that we might be fit for her blind devotion We must for the sake of Peace have denyed the Faith renounced our Reason and contradicted our very Senses That Church instead of instructing men in knowledge professes to nurse them up in ignorance in lieu of the Scriptures it gives them Traditions and instead of such things as were from the beginning and the faith once delivered to the Saints it prescribes those things that had their beginning from private interests and secular advantages They make seven Secraments five more than Christ ever intended for such and take away from the people the half of one of those he expresly instituted and enjoyned They teach men to pray to Saints instead of God and to use a Language in their Devotions which he that pronounces understands no more than the Saint he prayes to doth his Needs and Requests Nay they give divine honour to a piece of Bread and must swallow Idolatry in spite of their teeth herein little better than the Aegyptians who worshipt that for a God which they put into their Bellies They have taken away one of the Ten Commandments and have arts of evacuating allthe rest for they elude the necessity of a true and serious Repentance and subvert the principles of holy Life In short they have brought in Pageantry instead of Piety and Devotion effaced the true lineaments of Christianity and instead thereof recommended and obtruded upon the world the dictates of Ambition the artifices of Gain and a colluvies of almost all the Superstitions Errors and Corruptions of former Ages and this must be received and swallowed by all those that will continue in that Communion These things could not be submitted to without grievous Sin and manifest danger of Damnation therefore
Comparison as the Case in hand would admit of nor will I trouble the Reader with long stories of the admirable Conversation of those early Christians which whoso will take the pains may find in Justin Martyr A thenagoras Tertullian Origen and others And he that is willing to decline that trouble may find nearer hand in the Collections of a judicious and faithful Writer in his Book called Primitive Christianity But it may not be unuseful to remark some few particulars Of old to be a Christian was to be all that is holy just and good to be adorned with all those Virtues that can render a man acceptable to God or lovely amongst men Whereever this Religion came it was a Principle of Purity in mens Hearts of Honesty in their Lives and of Peace in Kingdoms and Societies It raised mens minds to a Contemplation and Pursuit of another World and inabled them both to despise the present and to be a blessing to it It did not teach men to speak great swelling words but to live to do and to suffer admirably that the very Pagans their mortal Enemies were astonished at them and some of them gave them this testimony Hi sunt qui vivunt ut loquuntur loquuntur ut vivunt These are the men that are as good as their word and live as high and generously as others talk The Christian Faith was not then a meer trick of Wit nor a bone of Contention but a Principle of sincere Honesty which guided men into the knowledge of their Duty and inspired them with courage and resolution to perform it Give me saith Lactantius a fierce and contentious man and if he will but apply himself to the Grace and Institutions of the Gospel he shall become as mild as a Lamb Give me a Drunkard or a Lascivious person with this Doctrine I will make him chaste and sober Let a Covetous man hearken to this Doctrine and he shall presently dispense his money as charitably as before he raked it together fordidly Give me a timorous and cowardly person this Religion shall presently make him valiant and despise death and danger And so he goes on In those dayes Believing was not an excuse for Disobedience or a commutation for a holy Life but a foundation of Obedience to all the Laws of God and man Then all the Professors of Christianity bad one heart and one lip and then they built towards Heaven in a good sense but since distraction of Mind alienation of Affections and confusion of Language hath made a Babel of a Church There was then but one division of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were the only Sects the World was divided by all good men were of one way and evil men of another But now there are almost as many Opinions as Men as many Parties as Opinions and as many Religions as either Time was when men sacrificed their Lives in testimony to their Faith as frankly as since they have done to their Passions Revenge or Ambition Then was Charity counted as essential a part of Religion as Censoriousness is now with too many Brotherly love and mutual dearness was a characteristical Note of those then that now may be as well known by their distractions and animosities St. Gregory Nazianzen said of those Times That if one Christian took notice of the error sin or failing of another it was to bewail it to heal it to cover his shame and cure his wound and prevent a scandal to his Profession but he observed that after-times made triumphs of mens weakness and follies and men learnt to justifie their own wickedness by the miscarriages of their Brethren and that he that would prove himself of the highest form of Christians set himself down in the seat of the scorner Nothing was then thought too good or costly for the service of God or Religion Men would not content themselves to serve God with that which cost them nothing It was only Julian or such another that envyed the costly Vessels wherewith Christ was served Works of Piety and Mercy and Charity cost them as much as Luxury and Contention now a dayes When the Gentiles in Tertullian's time upbraided the Christians that they made choice of a Cheap Religion and renounced the Pagan Sacrifices because they would not undergo the charge of them and complained that the Frugality of the Christian Worship caused a decay of Trade for the Eastern Gumms and Spices that used to be spent in the service of the Gods and that by this means the Customs of the Emperors were also diminished To all this he makes this answer We Christians spend more in the relief of the poor than you Gentiles do upon your Gods And though we use not Gumms and Spices for Incense yet we as much promote Trade by the vast proportions of those commodities we spend in the imbalming our dead And lastly if it should happen that the Emperors Exchequer should lose any thing either by the temperance of our Lives or the nature of our Religion yet we make it up another way for we make conscience of paying him his just dues whereas you cheat and defraud him of more than the proportion of your expences above ours would amount to In those early times the Christian Assemblies drained and emptied the Roman Theatres and the multitude thronged into the Church as earnestly as now they crowd out Coimus in coetum ut ad deum quasi manu factâ precationibus ambiamus orantes said the forementioned Tertullian The confluence to the publick Worship was in those dayes so great and the consent of heart and voice so universal that St. Jerome said The Hallelujahs of the Church was like the noise of many Waters and the Amen like Thunder Heaven and Earth then answered each other in a glorious Antiphone and made up one blessed Chorus There was joy in Heaven and peace on Earth The Hymn sung by the Angel at our Saviours Nativity was verified in those first Ages of his Religion Glory to God on High on Earth peace and Good-will amongst men The Holy men of those times that approached our Saviour had as it were some Rayes of his Divinity shed upon them and their faces shone like Moses's when he came down from the Holy Mount A Christian Church was a Colledge of holy and good men and the Glory of God filled the place where they assembled and Fire came down from Heaven too but not to set the World in combustion but to exhale and lift up the Odours of pious and devout Prayers But since those times Zeal hath decayed as if it had not been the intrinsick Excellency of Religion but the fires of Pagan Persecution that kindled that heat in the breasts of Christians And the Church so divided and broken in pieces as if it was not one Lord one Faith one Baptism that united them but a common enemy Dry Opinions have been taken for Faith and Zeal of 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
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
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
Livings like the Silver-smiths at Ephesus no wonder if Apostolical Doctrine and Government be cryed down and the Great Diana be cryed up The summ is this Some men were blindly led by their Education others by their Interest a third sort by their Reputation to make good what they had ingaged themselves and others in and these three things are able to form a great Party against the Church 4. The Fourth and Last Cause and I wish it be not the greatest of the Distractions and ill Estate of this Church is the want of true Christian Zeal and of a deep and serious sense of Piety in defect of which hath succeeded that wantonness curiosity novelty scrupulosity and contention we complain of What was it made the Primitive Church so unanimous that it was not crumbled into Parties nor mouldered away in Divisions nor quarrelled about Opinions nor separated one part from another upon occasion of little scruples How came it to pass as I observed in the Introduction to this Discourse that all good men were of one way and all evil men of another that those that travailed to the same City the heavenly Jerusalem kept the same Rode and parted not company It could not be that they should be without different apprehensions for mens Parts were no more alike nor their Educations more equal in those times than now There were then several Rites and Ceremonies that might have afforded matter of scruple if the Christians had been so disposed as well as now and I think both more in number and as lyable to exception as any thing now in use There was then bowing towards the East observation of Lent and other dayes distinction of Garments and innumerable other Observations in the early dayes of Tertullian and yet neither any Scripture brought to prove them nor any such proof thought necessary and yet they were observed without suspicion on one side or objection on the other Harum aliarum ejusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules Scripturarum nullam invenies sed traditio praetenditur auctrix consuetudo conservatrix fides observatrix saith he in his Book De Corona militis St. Austin saith in his time the number and burden of Ceremonies was grown as great as under the Law of Moses and therefore wishes for a Reformation thereof in his Epistles to Januarius yet never thought these things a sufficient ground of Separation from the Church There was then some diversity of Expression in which the Governours and Pastors of several Churches delivered themselves yet did they not dispute themselves hereupon into Parties nor accuse one another of false Doctrine or either Side make the division of the Church the Evidence of its Orthodoxy or the Trophy of its Victory The true reason then of the different Event of the same Causes then and now seems to be this That in those dayes men were sincerely good and devout and set their hearts upon the main the huge Consequence and concern of which easily prevailed with those holy men to overlook their private satisfactions They were intent upon that wherein the Power of Godliness consisted and upon which the Salvation of Souls depended and so all that was secure they were not so superstitiously concerned for Rituals nor so unreasonably fond of Opinions as to play away the Peace of the Church and the Honour of Religion against trifles and meer tricks of wit and fancy They considered that they all had one God one Faith one Baptism one Lord Jesus Christ in which they all agreed and these great matters were able to unite them in lesser They Good men found enough to do to mortifie their Passions to their burdens of Affliction and Persecution to withstand the Temptations of the Devil and the contagion of evil Examples from the world and had not leisure for those little Disputes that now imploy the minds of men and vex the Church They spent their Heat and Zeal another way and so their Spirits were not easily inflammable with every petty Controversie But when men grow cold and indifferent about great things then they become servent about the lesser When they give over to mind a holy Life and heavenly Conversation then they grow great Disputers and mightily scrupulous about a Ceremony When they cease to study their own hearts then they become censorious of other men then they have both the leisure and the confidence to raise Sarmises and Jealousies and to find fault with their Superiours In short then and not till then do the little Appendages of Religion grow great and mighty matters in mens esteem when the Essentials the great and weighty matters are become little and inconsiderable And that this is the Case with us in this Nation is too evident to require further proof and too lamentable a subject for any good Christian to take pleasure in dilating upon I conclude therefore in this Point lyes a great part of the Unhappiness of this Church and Kingdom 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. 1. A Reflection upon divers Wayes or Methods for the Prevention and Cure of Church-Divisions HAving in the former Part of this Discourse diligently enquired into and faithfully recited the principal Causes of the discontents with and secession from this Church It would now ill beseem Christian Charity to rest here for God knows neither the Evils nor the Causes afford any pleasant speculation It was a bad state of things at Rome which the Historian reports in these words Nec morbos nec remedia pati possumus That they were come to so ill a pass that they could neither indure their Distempers nor admit of the Remedies But I perswade my self though the condition of our affairs be bad enough yet that it is not so deplorable as to discourage all Endeavours of a cure And in this hope I take the courage to propound the following considerations wherein if I be deceived and miss of my aim I shall notwithstanding have that of Quintilian to comfort my self withal Prohabilis est cupiditas honestorum vel tutioris est audaciae tentare ea quibus est paratior venia It hath not been the single Unhappiness of this Church alone to be molested with Disputes loaden with Objections and dishonoured by Separation Nor can it be hoped that where the business is Religion and the concern Eternal Life that men should incuriously swallow every thing without moving any question or stirring any dispute And therefore all Churches must of necessity more or less have conflicted with the same difficulties we complain of And consequently the disease being so common it cannot be but that many and divers Remedies have been tryed and made use of And out of that store we will in this Chapter make election of such as seem best to fit the condition of the Patient and
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
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