of that Society so far as is necessary to the peace and quiet of it for otherwise a Society and no Society would be exactly the same that is every man would still remain his own Master and at liberty to doe as much as ever he could before For example in that which Mr. Hobbs is pleased to call the State of Nature when a man is not a member of a Body politick but a distinct and perfectly independent person by himself he is naturally invested with a right and power of defending his person or his possession by force of Arms he may lawfully revenge his own injuries and he is the onely Judge when he is wronged or injur'd because without all this power he cannot live in the World or continue in that Being which God and Nature have given him But if having listed themselves by mutual covenant and agreement into a Body politick or Commonwealth for the mutual defence and preservation of every particular person and of the whole Society men shall notwithstanding after this assume the same liberty to themselves of personal Revenges and of being their own Judges in controverted cases without referring themselves to the decision of the Law which is the civil Umpire betwixt man and man it is manifest this Society cannot be of long continuance or rather so long as this Liberty is taken it can never be a Society properly so called from whence it follows plainly that it is necessary if men will be members of a Society that they give up this private power into the hands of the publick If therefore the Church be a Society truly and properly so called if it be that mystical Body of which Christ is the Head if the members of this Body cannot be knit and well compacted together without external rules of discipline and order in which the very nature of a Society consists if the publick Orders of the Church and every man's prescribing rules to himself be inconsistent together and if the observing no rule or method at all either in Divine Worship or civil conversation be rather like a man in Bedlam than a Denison of a sober Corporation if charity good-will and love if mutual helpfulness and reciprocal usefulness to one another if peace with God and peace with men and peace within our selves be the great design and business of the Christian life if a man cannot be at peace with God while he is at enmity with his neighbour if a man can neither love nor fear nor know nor worship God aright at the same time when his thoughts are taken up and filled with envy uncharitableness detraction and revenge if no man can be happy in himself when he is displeas'd and angry with other men if the controversies raised about matters confessedly indifferent have been when and where-ever they have happened a perpetual bane and disquiet to the Church if they alwaies heighten mens Passions against and alienate their affections from one another if they are alwaies attended with a disturbance of the publick peace and have de facto proceeded to the utter subversion both of Church and State if all these Animosities and Contensions would immediately cease by a quiet and dutifull submission to the Authority of the Church if by giving up this Power the Church as a Body politick or Society of men is actually dissolved a Society or Aggregate of several persons being no otherwise one than as they submit to the same Laws and are governed by the same external Rules of discipline and obedience if Place and Time notwithstanding they be indifferent in themselves as to this or that particular determination yet is it necessary in the general that they should be determined otherwise there can be no publick Worship of God lastly when men are met together in a religious Assembly if every man shall follow his own particular fancie if almost every single person shall be seen in a different posture and if this be more like to make men look upon one another than to attend to the Minister or to mind themselves if it be more like to excite laughter than devotion if it be a natural obstruction to the solemnity and seriousness of religious Worship if done by chance it be a sign of too great negligence and remisness and if done on set purpose it be a sign of conceitedness and spiritual pride while every man prefers his own way and despises that of another if it be a ground of censure and may be a cause of uncharitableness and by degrees of separation then is it plain upon all these accounts which I have mentioned because it would be better if it were so and because it is necessary that it should be so because the Church can neither preserve it self in reputation nor so much as in being because it is for its undoubted and its perpetual interest and because it is necessary to its preservation that it should be invested with an Authority of adjusting the most indifferent circumstances of Divine Worship without which the blessed ends of Unity and Peace can never be obtained I say it is plain from all this that the Church is actually invested with this Power and that Ecclesiastical Constitutions may for the same reason determine indifferent matters for which the Civil forbid Adultery and Murther namely because it is necessary to the publick Peace which reason if it be not sufficient the Civil Laws do all of them become immediately null and void as being founded upon no other basis but the consideration of the publick good but if it be a solid and substantial reason I would fain know if any of the Dissenters be at leisure to inform me why it may not equally extend to defend the necessity and consequently justice of Ecclesiastical whether Laws or Censures Especially if we consider that as the case of the Christian world now stands the same persons with the same interests prejudices and passions are members both of the Civil and Ecclesiastical State so that it is as impossible there should be a disturbance in the one in which the other shall be unconcerned as that the same man should be divided from himself and it is every whit as clear that either it is not lawfull to use all necessary means for the preservation of the Civil Peace or it is lawfull for the Church to concern her self in the determination of indifferent matters which Determinations and Constitutions of hers may be lawfully confirmed and ratified by the State If men could differ without falling-out something might be pretended in behalf of an innocent though unbecoming Liberty but since the greatest feuds and animosities do sometimes take their rise from the smallest beginnings since the religious differences are of all others the greatest and the most fatal to the publick Peace since there is nothing so infinitely scrupulous as an unreasonably tender Conscience and since there is no pretence so inconsiderable from whence either indigent or ambitious men will not take
Precepts of obedience whose persons are and ought to be inviolable by the laws of nature and by the unalterable constitutions upon which all humane society is founded which can never be at peace within it self if the sovereign be accountable to any power but of God And though I do not think there can be such a thing in nature as an universal Bishop any more than there can be an oecumenical Monarch whom all mankind shall obey it being an unmanageable and unwieldy charge which no one man can possibly undergo with so much care and vigilance as is intrinsick and essential to the duty of a Bishop yet thus much I believe that let a temporal dominion be as large as it will it is necessary to the ends of an ecclesiastical society which is to provide for the peace and unity of all its members that as there is one King or Monarch over the whole so there should also be one Patriarch or Metropolite to whom all the rest of the Bishops should be in some sort accountable and upon whom they should have a dependence as their respective dioceses are accountable to themselves and as the particular flocks are likewise to pay a spiritual obedience to the several pastours or presbyters that are placed over them because by this means it comes to pass that the government is all of a piece and the unity of the church which is Christ's body is preserved by the members being fitly framed together as well with respect to one another as to their head Without this it is impossible to prevent schisms and contentions in the church and by consequence troubles and revolutions in the state or at least there is not all the care taken to prevent them which humane prudence and foresight might have used and for the same reason that there are such differences and inequalities in power there ought also to be a like disparity in the outward formalities of secular appearance and greatness otherwise the establishment of such a subordinate power will be a design that will not take effect an establishment that can neither be so strong nor so lasting as it is intended to be For as obedience is the cause of peace so are respect and reverence the most natural and the most lasting causes of obedience and it is that which they call the Typhus secularis the pomp and vanity of this wicked world as vain and as wicked as it is it is a shew of grandeur an appearance of power a plentifull table a numerous dependance and a long train of moenical servants belonging to a wise man who knows how to make use of these things for the good of the world that is the most certainly productive cause of reverence and respect it is that which bating the terrours of the rods and axes and setting the fears of punishment aside hath a magnetick nature to attract obedience and a power of persuasion to make it an easie and a voluntary thing Whereas though it be true that no society can subsist without fear yet it is true likewise that it can never possibly be strong and lasting unless that fear be tempered by esteem and love and as the latter of these without the former would be every whit as unconstant and uncertain as the changeable humour of a fickle mistress so would the former divorc'd and separated from the latter be in its subject the vassallage of slaves and in its object the barbarity and fierceness of a cruel tyrant which will not be endured any longer than needs must For man is naturally a disobedient creature and therefore when he feels himself abused and opprest there is his interest added to his natural inclination to prompt him to rebell but when a government proceeds by wise and sober measures though every man would be glad to be uppermost himself yet when he sees a moral impossibility lying in his way that ever he should arrive to the top of his desires and when he can propose greater and more certain advantages to himself by obeying his superiours than by conspiring or murmuring against them this creates in him an artificial or a secondary inclination to be content with his condition and to obey the authority that is placed over him and still the wiser any man is the more he considers the mischiefs of contention the sad effects of confusion the greater likelyhood that there is of losing his own fortune in the publick scramble than of getting another man's besides the tenderness that all men have for life and the folly of encountring with the most dreadfull dangers upon an improbable prospect of advantage and this makes him the more willing and ready to acquiesce in present things and to propose to himself no other than such advantages as may be acquired with the good leave of the government and with consistence to his duty But where the mold and frame of the constitution it self is such that men are in a manner upon a levell with their governours and do by consequence universally despise them here is a conspiracy ready formed without the White-horse consults or the Wild-house caballs to resist and overthrow it and the general disposition which is in all to disobey makes the government it self precarious and uncertain which was the great fault of the Presbyterian establishment for besides that equality is the parent of disorder the eternal source of strife animosity and contention and breaks out unavoidably into independency anarchy and confusion I say besides this men do not so easily submit themselves to the discipline in Cuerpo as to the solemnity of the present constitution and to the grave and fatherly reproofs or censures of a wise and learned Bishop so that what they wanted of the natural causes of obedience they were forced to supply by severity and rigour or rather every thing seems like rigour and severity where we have a mean or no opinion of the persons that command for every thing they enjoin hath the force and appearance of tyranny and usurpation and arbitrary government when the governours placed upon the levell with our selves do not look as if they had a natural right to challenge any duty or obedience from us The contrivers of this modell were very sensible of this disadvantage and therefore the better to reconcile the people to it they very wisely called their lay-neighbours in to come and take upon them a share of the administration the lay-elders were to rule the Parishes and to fill the consistories and the people which is without question a very fine sort of government were to be governed by themselves not considering that as lay-men neither are nor can be fit judges in ecclesiastical matters so in the general they do not understand sufficiently the nature of laws and the design of punishment they have not sufficiently considered the wise proportions and temperaments of mercy and justice they have not for the most part such a sense of humanity or such a comprehenfive prospect
impossible that there should because of necessity the several manners customes and other circumstances of several Nations will introduce a diversity of external Formalitie into Religious Worship which may be done without any breach of Charity or Friendship among men because there is no interest to be served by promoting Feuds and Animosities between them and it will be all one to the peace and happiness of this Kingdome what rites or usages soever the Greek or Armenian Churches shall embrace We do not much trouble our heads though by reason of their near Neighbourhood we have some reason to do it about the French saying Mass or adoring Reliques or Images or praying for Dead or worshipping the Host Nay you shall hardly ever see a man in a passion when he hears the Tragicall stories of those horrible persecutions against the professours of the Reformed Religion but though he may relieve and pity them so far as a small temporary Contribution will go yet in truth and reality he is not much concerned whereas at home we can make a shift to fall out about much smaller matters the reason is because we are not embarked in the same bottom with them and so being able to do neither good nor hurt by being angry or displeas'd we scarce ever trouble our selves But at home the pretences of Religion and Liberty which are always stirring when ever there is any prospect of publique Disorders likely to ensue upon them will never fail to excite the ambitious the discontented and the needy to embroyle the State out of principles either of Interest or Revenge while the passions of men that dayly converse together and are engaged by interest or prejudice or duty in the respective parties do but serve to blow the cole and improve the sparks of Animosity into a flame of War The consequence of all which is That there may be differences in the universal Church consisting of many Kingdomes and Provinces without dissention and that all that whatever it is which is requisite to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace may be consistent enough with differences in smaller matters but that in the same Kingdome or Dominion this can never be But secondly By the Church we may understand a National Congregation of Christian People divided into many partitions or particular assemblies united together by an unity of Faith and Discipline and Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and this is that which I affirm to be necessary in every Kingdome or State that would avoid all occasions of publique Tumults and Disorders and would be as happy either as themselves can wish or as Christianity designs to make them And therefore this is that unity which is by every Good Christian good Citizen or good Subject above all things which this world can afford the most earnestly to be desired for the obtaining of which he is to submit to every thing that shall be required of him and he is to abstain from every thing which is forbidden him if all things considered it may lawfully be done or avoided Thirdly In compliance with those of the Congregationall way I am content to allow a third sense of the word Church to be a particular and independent Congregation governed by Laws and measures of its own and acknowledging no Jurisdiction Forreign to it self and this is a Form of Church Government which in a Christian Kingdome or Common-wealth I affirm to be naturally unlawfull And here there are two cases to be considered First Either the whole body of the People is divided into such particular and independent Congregations or there is a nationall Establishment from which these particular Congregations have separated themselves The first of these is Babel in Effigie the very Emblem and Landskip of Confusion subject to inconveniences that cannot be thought of till they are felt and capable of such infinite sub-divisions as will at length reduce the comely Form of Government by so many particular interests and factions into a State of publick Hostility and Rapine for the reason why men separate from one another is always out of some reall or some pretended dislike which dislikes by actuall separation are so far from being composed that they are manifestly improved and heightned by it and from hence arise so many several Interests as there are Sects or denominations of Parties in a Common-wealth For it is natural to all men to desire to gain Proselytes to their own Opinion for men to love themselves and those of their own way and to think of other men who are not enroll'd in the same list with themselves if not with a reall hatred yet with a less esteem and a comparative Aversation which whenever a Ball of Interest is thrown between them will be improved into all the sad effects of the most desperate Malice and Revenge But here to make all sure as I go along I must repeat again That by Indâ—â—endent Congregations I mean such as own no Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction externall to themselves from whence it is easie to perceive that every such Congregation may be a new Sect and Party by it self as it was in a manner in the late Times when the Sects were spawned in such increadible abundance that the Alphabet began to complain of want of Letters to furnish so many different and disagreeing Parties with names Neither is it to be supposed that so many several Factions notwithstanding their differences in matters of Religion shall yet conspire in an uniform Obedience to the Civil Power because to be uppermost is that which they all desire and since the very same persons are members of the Commonwealth and of a particular Sect or Party it is ridiculous to hope that the State can ever be quiet till all these parties can agree together to be of the same mind which is to make them cease to be what they are In the United Provinces where the greatest Liberty is given and taken of any other Territory in the Christian World the peace of the publick could not be secured if it were not for the Overballance of the Calviâ—isticall Party above the rest for the Calvinists as Sir Willian Temple in his Observations upon the United Provinces takes notice p. 204. make up the body of the People and are possessed of all the publick Churches in the Dominions of the State as well as of the onely Ministers or Pastours who are maintained by the publick who have no other Salaries than what they receive from the State upon whom they wholly depend and for that reason they will be sure to preach obedience and submission to the People But yet notwithstanding this so great has the power and interest of the Louvestane or Arminian Party alwaies been that it has been the occasion of great revolutions among them and as it was probably one of the main causes of their so sudden fall from the height of envy into the lowest region of pity and despair within the compass of a very few years
to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own desence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or distrubance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authority that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the supersluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine Service which may very well be done without any Schism or Separation from the body of the Church abroad either on the one part or the other Yet for private men to separate from the National Establishment upon pretence that the Ceremonies are too burthensome or too many is manifestly unlawfull The reason is because this will be lyable to the same Inconveniences to which a separation upon pretence of greater Purity is expos'd and in both cases if every private man shall be allow'd to judge for himself and to proceed to a Separation in pursuance of that judgment so infinite are the humours the sancies the prejudices the perversities of some men so fond are they of Novelty and Change so apt to controul Authority and so desirous to be govern'd only by their own Measures that there can be no lasting Establishment in the World but the Discipline of the Church will be alwaies reeling like a Drunken Man and driven to and fro like a Wave of the Sea by every Capricious wind of Innovation We will suppose for the present in favour of the Dissenters because they cannot prove it that there are too many Ceremonies in our Church yet I presume it will be granted that there are not above four or five or half a dozen too many or if you will to make it a plump number and to put the Objection into better shape let them be half a score which I believe upon an exact computation will go a great way in the Ceremonies of the Church of England and let all these be imposed as indispensable conditions of Communion 'T is pretty severe I confess to lay so great a stress upon Indifferent Matters but yet certainly no man in his wits will ever pretend that this is such an intollerable burthen as that he must needs separate rather than comply but if there be any that are so hardy to do it though I will not discommend them for their courage a vertue of which in this contentious Age we have a great deal of need yet in my opinion they deserve rather to be soundly Laught at than seriously Confuted What hath been said of the Churches Power in retrenching the number of her Ceremonies the same is likewise true as to the Ceremonies themselves that they may from time to time be altered and changed for others in their stead by the Authority of the Church as shall seem most Expedient to that publique Wisdome for the great Purpose of Edification but for every private person to challenge this Right to himself is unlawfull because liable to the same inconveniences with separating under colour of Ceremonious Superfluities or of purer Ordinances and purer Ordinances and purer Worship which are therefore justly to be suspected to proceed out of a bad design because they never can have any end Saint Paul in several places of his Epistles expresses great tenderness for the infirmity of the weak Brother but yet if the Instances of such his condescention be examined they will be sound to be of a quite different nature from those which make up the pretences of our daies as consisting first in the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which as looking like a participation of the table of Devils and as being expresly prohibited by a
because all other pretences are infinite and at that rate there can be no end of Dissention among men especially if we consider farther what is not perhaps so usually regarded or at least not mentioned among the reasons which prove a Separation unlawfull men do not onely by this means divide from one another as to their religious concerns but even in their temporal affairs they care not to deal or have to doe with one another and thus they trade and marry and converse generally with the men of their own way and are almost to all intents and purposes as many distinct Societies as there are parties or factions in that unhappy Church whose misfortune it is to be so miserably divided the consideration of which cannot chuse but affright every man who has any regard either of his own peace or to that of his Countrey by presenting him with a dismal Scene of a Church divided and mangled into several disagreeing bodies separated in all respects from one another and as it were drawn up in Battalia and expecting onely the Signal of opportunity or advantage on any side to begin a bloudy encounter which they that complain so heavily of Persecution themselves when they have so little reason and when they at the same time persecute the Government and all that favour it with calumny and detraction which is a very grievous sort of persecution will certainly doe whenever it shall lie in their power They having not onely given us a sufficient spice of their temper in the late times to teach us not to trust them any more or any farther than needs must but it is scarce longer ago than yesterday that the tender Consciences were indulged so long till they grew too hard for the Government and it is but too â—vident by their words and actions in that critical juncture that if they had gained their point which was the subversion of the present establishment disguised under specious pretences of uniting Protestants who cannot be united by any thing but a publick Form and Ritual of Divine Service they would soon have shewn us what opinion they have of their pretended Diana Toleration a Goddess never worshipt in the publick Temples and a word that never sounds pleasantly but to those that want the thing So that an universal Toleration of all parties and opinions being manifestly proved to be naturally unlawfull to be attended with infinite inconvenience and mischief both to the publick and particular persons of which the body politick it self is made up as the whole is but an aggregate of several parts considered as one and summed up together there remains now nothing farther to be considered under the topick of concession but that either we alter some ceremonies which have afforded matter or pretence of scruple for others in their stead or that we do totally abolish whatever is excepted against without any supplement or reparation For the first of these it is granted by such as shall desire it that an imposition in the general is lawfull otherwise it would be ridiculous to talk of substituting other Ceremonies in the stead of those that are abolish'd when the very substitution it self is made an exception against them it behoves those persons therefore who are desirous of such an alteration since by the desire it self they do imply an acknowledgment that a substitution that is a new imposition may lawfully be made and by consequence that an imposition in the general considered is not unlawfull I say it concerns them to shew some particular reason besides the imposition of their dislike of the Ceremonies which are already in use for otherwise if we must alter them for no reason we can have no certainty that this innovating humour will ever have an end neither is it possible to make any other construction of it but that it proceeds out of a design to give an endless disturbance to the publick peace notwithstanding it pretends to establish and secure it And as for those in the second place that are for abolishing without a reparation the case will be the same again for either they are against those Ceremonies which they would have abolished merely for that reason because they are imposed and then it is manifest they ought not to be heard because this like Sampson with an honest perhaps but yet a blind fury and a mistaken zeal pulls up the very Pillars of Government from their natural basis and destroys the onely expedient under Heaven of publick safety security and peace it makes the very worship of God it self precarious and uncertain and exposes it at every turn to the design of Knaves the destructive zeal of Madmen and Enthusiasts the libertinism of Epicures and voluptuary persons to the scorn of Atheists and the contempt of all wise considerate and sober men there must therefore still be another reason assigned why the Ceremonies that are boggled at should be abolished and those reasons can be none but one of those three that have been mentioned already either they are too cumbersome by reason of their number or they are superstitious in their use or they are idolatrous in their direction The first of these particulars hath been already considered and as to the second a Ceremony may be said to be superstitiously used when we ascribe to it some Physical virtue or efficacy or some supernatural effect which it hath not or when we say that by or together with it grace is conferred as in the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper but we do not affirm this of any of our Ceremonies and our Church hath expresly declared that she intends nothing by them but onely peace and decency and edification and for the use of the Cross in Baptism which is the great thing scrupled under this head of Superstition she does expresly declare that it doth not at all belong to the Essence of it that the Baptism is compleat without and before it that it is onely a declarative rite of the persons being listed under Christ's Banner of our being dedicated to his service who for our sakes underwent so painfull and so ignominious a death of our not being ashamed of that Cross which the Son of God himself underwent and of our willingness if occasion be to take up our Cross and follow him through much tribulation and sufferings into the glory of the Father So that here there are but two things to be considered either this Rite is unlawfull because it hath been superstitiously abused by those in the Romish Communion and then upon the same account kneeling at our Prayers will be unlawfull because the Papists kneel to the host which yet I presume none of the Dissenters will be so hardy to say or else secondly it will be said as some of them do that it is therefore unlawfull because it is a Ceremony of a symbolical or significative nature which is very strange as if a Ceremony could be unlawfull onely for that reason because it
reason and common sense and hath believed the grâ—ssest contradictions as Articles of Faith condescended to the most Contemptible and Apish Follies as parts of a Serious and Devout Worship is ultimately resolved into their unacquaintance with the Scriptures which as long as they were in common use among the people so long the Christian Faith continued as to the main free from that foul degeneracy and corruption to which it was afterwards for so many ages condemned and under which so great a part of the Christian World is to this day so fatally opprest but when once the Greek and Roman Tongues became from vernacular to be learned languages when neither the Fountains themselves nor their purest streams could be repaired to by the ordinary people and in too many instances not by the Priests themselves while Translations were either not thought of or not permitted this gave occasion for ignorance and superstition by insensible degrees to corrupt and adulterate Religion and for the craft and wickedness of designing Priests who gain by nothing more than by the credulity and superstition of ignorant and foolish men to introduce those opinions and practices into the world which it is hard to say whether they were better fitted to promote the outward pomp and splendour the secular interest and advantage of the Romish Church and Clergy or more expressy contrary to the positive and declared Revelations of Christ and his Apostles such as are the sacrifice of the Mass Prayers and Masses for the dead denying the Cup to the Laiety in the Holy Eucharist and the Celibate of the Clergy or forbidding Clergy-men to Marry of which the first and third were intended to create a respect and reverence for the person of the Priest the second to be a perpetual Tax and Subsidy upon the Laiety the last to secure the grandeur and external pomp of the Church and all of them to fill the peoples heads with such absurd and grosly superstitious opinions as are the most effectual means for the promoting and perpetuating to â—uture generations all these unwarrantable interests and designs Secondly As unacquaintance with the Scriptures which to the Romish Church are as a talent hid in a Napkin or a Candlestick put under a bushell was the true cause of that Universal Idolatry and Corruption which prevails among the deluded Votaries of that Communion so on the other side the true reason why the Reformed Churches have shaken off that yoke of absurdities and abominations why they have embraced a Religion more agreeable to nature and more suitable to revelation is to be referred to the Holy Evangelists and Apostles speaking to every one of us as they did to the multitude on the day of Pentecost in his own proper Idiom and Language which it is utterly impossible they should do but they must at the same time discover plainly to the world God's utter detestation of all such Idolatrous practices and of all those absurd and unwarrantable opinions upon which those forbidden practices are founded But thirdly to bring the matter a little more home to the Jews themselves if it be demanded why before the Captivity of Babylon they were so often guilty of Idolatry but never after it as it is plain they were not the true reason of this is that soon after the established worship was again setled upon its old foundations by Esdras and Nehemias the Translation of the seventy was made out of the Original Hebrew and from that time forward the Law was layed open both to the Jewish and the Gentile World And these three things as I have said which are matters of fact and arguments drawn from experience I take to be a plain and undeniable demonstration of the matter in question that the ancient Jews were not permitted the reading of the Law for themselves or in their respective families or persons This is the fourth reason a fifth no less demonstrative than that is shall be taken from the peoples calling to Esdras to bring out the Book of the Law and of their having lost not only the memory of those rites and usages with which their solemn Feasts were to be observed but of the very Feasts themselves of their having lost their language in so great a measure that Esdras was forced not only to produce the Law but to explain it to them as I conceive in the Chaldean or Assyrian tongue which was then more familiar to them than their native Hebrew All which it is utterly unconceivable how it should ever have come to pass had it been the custom of every private person to transcribe the Law for himself as the Rabbins and their adherents would make us believe and to reade it to his Children and Domestiques in his family I say it would have been impossible at this rate that in so small a period of time there being several who had seen the first Temple who likewise returned again from the Captivity and saw the foundations of the second lay'd so strange an ignorance and so utter a forgetfulness of the whole Law should over-spread the whole Nation of the Jews Insomuch that it was the opinion of Ireneus Eusebius and several other of the ancient Fathers that the Law of Moses in this Interval was utterly lost and that by a supernatural revelation it was renewed by Edras nay Tertullian in his book de habitu Muliebri is so positive as to affirm it for a certain and undoubted truth Hierosolymis Babiloniâ expugnatione deletis omne instrumentum Judaicae literaturae constat per Esdram esse restauratum It is certain that after Jerusalem was demolished by the King of Babylon all the Monuments of the Jewish Learning or Law which were now perfectly lost were restored by Edras Which opinion as being grounded upon no other foundation than that extreme ignorance of the people in the Law after the return from the captivity and their importuning Esdras to bring out the Book of the Law may without any unwarrantable disrespect to antiquity be rejected especially since I hope I may pretend to have given a better account of those matters because it hath nothing precarious in it which is the fault of this for it does not follow because Esdras was desired to bring out the book of the Law that therefore it was revealed to him by inspiration but he could not bring it out unless he had it in possession is certain which is all that I contend for Neither need we be so scrupulous of rejecting the testimony of the Fathers in this case if we consider that the divine inspiration of the seventy Interpreters and their exact jumping together notwithstanding every man made his Translation apart is asserted by every whit as strong nay a much stronger suffrage of antiquity than this of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or supernatural illumination of Esdras nay Justin Martyr tells us that he himself saw those very Cells in which this miracle of a Translation was wrought and yet nothing in