are the Canon and Rule of Life but because the Spirit of God has given its Testimony not only by inspiring their first Publishers but by Miracles that are without the power of Natures attempts and by this Testimony out-dated the Law which was before established by the same Sanction therefore if other Doctrines might have the same Testimony I see no reason but they must become Canonical and of the same Authority with the Scriptures themselves since those were but the Doctrines and Writings of men inspired to the truth and confirmation of which the holy Spirit gave its Divine Testimony and thus passed them into Canons and Rules Ald. I apprehend the strength of this Consequence and methinks it should be sufficient to baffle all their bold pretensions We should then be rarely governed indeed if each of them might speak Canons Vic. Although your Worship cannot but know that their mouths are of sufficient bore and big enough to cast Canons yet their Metall is not equally tempered for such work which was the cause why their Pieces flew about their own ears not only striking off the Tips of some but filling their heads with such an unusual noise that they have ever since been troublesome to Mankind and run about like so many Knight Errants encountring not only flocks of Sheep insteed of Armies but sight with Windmils instead of Giants when the Champions are only entia rationis wrapped about in Logick breeches gendered by the wind that lodges in the Caverns of their Authors brains Ald. It seems then by your discourse if a man would draw the Picture of one of their Itinerants it must be Don Quixot riding upon Rosinante Vic. I did not think your Worship had so excellent a phansie for Limning there is not only colour in your similitude but proportion too only you forgot to have a Regiment of Sancho's attending on him Ald. Well Sir be the Picture what it will it cannot as far as I perceive by your discourse be worse than the Pattern But let not our intermediate mirth steal away that little time which remains so far as to give too much interruption to our more serious discourse Pray inform me of some other absurdity that follows our wild mens pretensions to the testimony of the Spirit Vic. If their Testimony of the Spirit were true then the most just Precepts of the Gospel would be cancelled for the latter Law repeals the former which is opposite to it and they establishing their own Doctrine which we both acknowledge to be repugnant to the Gospel and the Injunctions and Commands of persons then sufficiently inspired the Doctrine of Christ and his blessed Apostles will lose both its force and obligation if Heaven should seal the Doctines of these men by that sacred testimony which they pretend to Ald. God deliver me from such impostors these indeed have a fine way to set up new Christs and new Gospels or whatever they please to establish Vic. 'T is very true Sir however if some had the hearing of our discourse it would sound harsh and they would look upon us as reprobates and castawaies Ald. Surely none but such as you were speaking of but now who having lost their ears might have their hearing so far impaired that their sense being frighted into the brain it may be so much inwards that they understand little besides what themselves speak Such ears can only be grated with our discourse that are either raw or else newly skinn'd over Vic Alas Sir you are not I perceive acquainted with the Gentlemen we are speaking of though by the Picture you shewed me just now I am convinced you are well seen in their faces Some of their ears are as tender as their Consciences being cut into just shape and form Ald. I le warrant these are busie men Vic. As busie as a Spider when he is making his Web to catch Flies they walk like Footmen And there are some of them that now Nature has beat out all their teeth gnash at the Bishops with their gums that would reduce them to beggery to teach them humility and make them poor that they may use Hospitality As if the whole Nation were grown so bankrupt that they could not pay their debts on Earth unless they forced Heaven to a surrender and we could not sufficiently abhor Idolls unless we committed Sacriledge Ald. Methinks such persons whose brains are like the restless Sea in a perpetual motion not only when driven by a storm but also when the heavens are serene should out of policy be set about some imployments that should be so laborious as to keep them in business without any interruption that so they might not have sufficient time to shake Foundations and undermine Government Vic. I wish they were locked up with the Records of the Tower or put upon inventing a way to pay off all the Sea-forces of France without the sale of Cathedral Lands I verily perswade my self that these men will be angry at death when it comes and go to their very graves murmuring nay will mutiny also in the other world if misery and torment does not restrain them Ald. Indeed we have for a long time exercised lenity and mercy towards them and as far as I perceive it does but make them the more rude and insolent prone alwaies not only to speak evil of dignities but to actual Rebellion and Insurrections and therefore I verily believe that Sathan himself will have no way to tame them but by fire and faggot Vic. Methinks if they had but any grains of modesty if they would according to St. Pauls Rule have their faith to themselves and not meet together in such vast numbers as if they were resolved to affront Authority and make the best part of the Nation continually full of dreads and fears I could be contented because we would not have so much to do with them as at all to acquaint them how hell will hereafter restrain their Mutinies that they should be undisturbed Ald. Why As far as I understand no body endeavours or ever did attempt in the Protestant Religion to compell any mans understanding or faith Vic. In this Sir we are all for that Catholick Charity so much voted for by those Consciences that have the largest dimensions for we know that it is impossible to impose upon the understandings of men which must be perswaded first of the truth of those things which they will be induced to credit and believe But then only do our Canons and Laws begin to be severe and punish persons of different perswasions from the established Creed when their belief produces such actions as are prohibited and repugnant to the known Laws of the Realm And truly if that great Wheel of Humane Policy that turns round the Affairs of Mankind should ever prove a rack to that Religion which we now profess I should heartily thank God and those Rulers that my Obligation subjected me to if I might but enjoy what our discontented
Sergeants that they may the better support the great burden of the Mace and attendance but those daies we appear in Publick to the terrour and astonishment of inferiour Townsmen in our Sattin Doublets made big for the purpose and so zealous are we in the performance of this Duty that you shall scarce have one missing but the whole Corporation compleat and full Nay if we want the least Punctilio either of time or place or have any distance in our Ranks broken or any Alderman should chance through inadvertency to mend his pace or finally any Burgess should neglect or refuse to pay that homage and honour due to our Grandeur we presently in a grave and solemn manner pronounce him perjured and sometimes for the second or third offence he is disfranchized and removed both from the Honour and Society of the Corporation Vic. That truly is strict and severe and it seems affrightens and terrifies more than an Excommunication from the Bishops Courts Ald. Alas if our Laws should carry no more force with them than your Canons which are Guns only without any thing to charge them and the frown of an Alderman should not be more than the rage of a Bishop we might hang up our Gowns as Ensigns over the Graves of our Honour which would not only be dead but buried too Vic. But the Thunderbolts of Jove were alwaies feared and when an Excommunication comes forth Heaven then discharges its Artillery and shall not the Inhabitants of the World tremble and be afraid Ald. 'T is a great way betwixt Heaven and Earth and the spacious air will make the Bullet spend its force before it arrives to hit the Mark nor do we think Heavens Ordnance so ill guarded that any upon the Earth can come to fire them and if there were both Permission and Authority we would trust them at a Battery so far from us when we only hear the noise but do not feel the stroke But now the Temporal Magistrate bears not the Sword in vain when Mr. Mayor speaks the inferiour Townsmen fear an Earthquake and when he strikes 't is not fire to light his candle but he makes the streets belch forth flames Vic. Truly Sir I never took his Worship for an Incendiary and as for his Speech it is so flow and seldom that it had need be to purpose when it comes Ald. Thus have I seen when I was in the Straits the lofty Aetna cast forth both fire and smoke Vic. And thus have I heard an hollow Mountain frequently making great noise Ald. I hope you do not account us hollow Vic. No Sir that were scandalously disingenious when we are discoursing of Town-Feasts the similitude only lodged in the Mountain to which you may at this time justly be compared But that you may not force me any longer to such wandring discourse I find by your brisk and pleasant Relation of your Town Customs which I must confess so noble and great that they are disproportionable to my understanding that you are not only pleased with their due and punctual observation but think this your grand Obligation to perform them because you have solemnly sworn thereto Ald. I hope Sir I did not err in that Assertion nor have mine old age whose eyes are dim been guilty of an over-sight Vic. No Sir your Worship in my poor judgment hath in this spoken abundance of Reason and in that you also charged the violation of those Customs you are sworn to with the damning and odious Crime of Perjury but from this Concession of yours I shall deduce that Consequence which I fear we shall have some Controversie about Ald. I hope you will not be so presumptuously bold as to dare contend with me I doubt you will get but little by your shot besides a rebound of your bullet back into your own face Pray Sir let your Expressions be phrased a little more modestly Vic. I am sorry that it is my misfortune not to talk with one upon equal terms it is my perpetual misery to place my words for the most part to your Worship as to be misconstrued and mistaken by you I design no disrespect to you nor any dishonour to the Corporation and I am sure I am used to distance sufficiently that I may be acquainted with it better Ald. I am glad to hear you so humble and penitent as to recant your Error and too arrogant Expression since you seem you to be a person that know how to be civil I shall lend an ear to your Consequence and Deduction Vic. With leave then from your Worship it is this that if you are bound to observe your ancient Customs because as you say you are sworn to their observation much more are you obliged to punish Vice and unlawful Assemblies whether of riotous persons in the Vulgar notion or of Non-conformists in a new dress because you are sworn to that too Ald. Did not I first severely admonish you that your speech should be without reflections and that your care should be great that you did not blemish the glory of our Corporation and on this condition I would hear your Doctrine if you would permit me to make mine own use of it Vic. All this if it shall please your good Worship shall be readily granted nor do I think I have yet broken the Laws of our Discourse for I have cordially expressed my self in relation to the honour of the Corporation and I shall still leave you to make what use you shall think fit of my Debate but Justice I hope with which I know your sage head like a Gold Ring is sufficiently enamell'd will plead with you for a proportionable though not equal Latitude and you will give me leave to make some use of your Doctrine Ald. I see 't is in vain any longer to restrain you for you will tell truth in the face of the Sun Draw what Consequence you will from me but I le assure you I will withdraw my Purse from you Vic. I am sorry I must disoblige your Worship so far for indeed to say truth you were the best Friend I have in the Town I had two Shillings a year from you duly divided into half-yearly payments besides oftentimes free access to your Table but if I must forfeit this for performance of my duty I shall never offer my Sacred Function at such a Shrine nor sacrifice truth upon a Silver Altar I must plainly tell you then you seem to me from your own discourse to have brought upon your self the most hainous and abominable sin of Perjury Ald. O abomination as I am an Alderman and thereby a person of honour You are worse than all that were here before you I never heard such a rude and wicked word come from a Ministers mouth before Vic. That perhaps may be the reason why you do no better understand it Ald. God Almighty give me patience surely if you are not more modest in your deportment I shall be forced to call for
only take Cognizance of their Actions Your Authority is supplicated and humbly begg'd to be made use of only to restrain their open affronts to Law and Government and to give a check to their bold Assemblies and numerous Meetings for fear lest their discerning their strength they may at last attempt by force what your Oath obliges you to endeavour to prevent and obviate And by this they will only pay a Tribute at the most by Mulcts and Punishments for what they are so willing to enjoy and they need not be forced to a Faith in that which Reason does not perswade them to believe Thus the Rod punishing and restraining the unlimited propagation of Error and Schism they will by this be put upon enquiry after the Truth and upon a sufficient view of what they have not yet made a through inspection into they may at last embrace with cordial affection what they now prosecute and offer violence to with the greatest transports of passion and malignity Ald. But their Party seems so very much lately encreased that they will turn the edge of the Magistrates Sword and weary Justice with the execution of them Vic. You may therefore cut your work far shorter and Justice may act with the less noise but greater success if you only prosecute the Heads of them and execute the Laws only upon those who lead the innocent sheep astray Ald. And are you contented that the rest should still run into disorder Vic. You will find the rest in time to run themselves into the fold when the Bell-weathers are gone which they were wont to follow Ald. But methinks this should be the Office of the Bishops and their Ecclesiastical Judges Vic. First Sir all that the Law permits them to act punishes nothing but the soul and conscience and those persons that we have to deal with have their Consciences feared with an hot iron so that these wounds will not make them bleed for the utmost a Bishops Court can do is but to excommunicate the Offendor Ald. And is not that exceeding severe Vic. It is Sir a most dreadful Sentence and made such gashes and wounds formerly that no Medicine but an Absolution could heal far more deep than the severest stroke from the sharpest Sword set on by the hand of the most potent Emperour But now since Atheism and Impiety has grown to a height under the pretense and shelter of Reformation and Religion heavens thunder and lightening too proves to men but like Squibs and Rockets make only a great noise and a pleasant flash but scarce singe so much as the Garment Ald. Methinks Mr. Vicar you make light of that which was went to be esteemed a serious matter and awed the minds and consciences of men before Christianity could gain either the favour or assistance of the Civil Magistrate Vic. I only now gave you the Conjectures of those persons we have to deal with when Order and Religion are almost banished by the boldness and Rebellion of wicked men but if you would have mine own judgment I cannot but tremble at the very thoughts of an Excommunication which being attended with its due circumstances does not only cut off Communion here but also from Fellowship with the blessed Angels and Saints hereafter and what is thus bound on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Ald. And why cannot this then have the same effects that it had heretofore to restrain men from vice and disobedience Vic. Your Worship need not enquire a reason of this when you shall consider that those for the most part that will be concerned in this Sentence have other Notions not only of the Sentence it self but also of the Persons that pronounce it than the Primitive Christians formerly had they think the Sentence is not of such force as we believe it is and however that those persons that now pronounce it are not sufficiently authorized to do it Ald. Why They are Commissioned by the King himself and enabled by the Laws of the Land Vic. The wisest of them will not question I suppose but that they have a Civil Sanction and that the Ecclesiastical are the Kings Courts but this is so far from being Argumentative to produce fear that it is the only reason why they scorn it and the chief motive that I would make use of to crave assistance from the Civil Sword Ald. How can that possibly be Methinks you relate Riddles to me Vic. I shall presently then unriddle the Mystery because I am not willing to hold you in suspense You must know then that our Non-conformists are much of the Papists humour in particular nor can they think that the Civil Power should give a Sanction to the Kirks Laws and therefore if they can but satisfie themselves that the present Church is without Power derived from Heaven the Statutes made to confirm our Courts or to make the Sentences of these valid they conclude to be of no greater concernment than the other Laws made against themselves and may be equally violated without sin or danger To tell you the truth Sir they look upon our Church as none at all our Bishops only as Popish Prelates our Ministers as nothing but Baals Priests and all our maintenance as nothing but food for the God Bell. Al. Not so surely Vic. Why do they then separate from us And not only look upon our Prayers as deficient but our very Sermons without Authority and Power nay our very Communion and Sacraments as abomination and pollution Ald. These men indeed must be looked to for I see if they are permitted thus to run on without controul they will not only bring us to confusion but kill and stay that they may take possession Vic. That was you know their former Doctrine and though they then made as one would think sufficient use yet acording to their usual Method they are yet upon the Application Ald. But if these men reject our Church and deny our Bishops to be at least Ministers how will they make out their own Call and evidence their own Ordination lawful since their Primitive Reformers the Authors of their Succession received Orders from the Bishops hands by virtue of which they presumed to impose upon others Vic. They have a way to deny Succession to be necessary to a Church and besides they have changed their Principles as your Dialogue will inform you that the Presbyterian might the better associate with the Independent and unite their Forces to vanquish ours But if you would have your doubt at large resolved I know you are sufficiently acquainted and have familiarity with persons of all Perswasions and I desire you would put your Objection close to them that so they may give you a resolution of what I profess my self unable to do nor will I attempt it since neither my Judgment nor Obligation leads me to it Ald. I see no reason indeed why you should be put upon the defense of them But an Excommunication makes men liable to Temporal
the Laws you are sworn to are to be your Director and unless you receive a prohibition from him who has the Supreme Executive as well as Legislative Power of the Kingdom your Oath whatever may either through fear self-inteterest or indulgence to others be pleaded to the contrary will oblige you upon no less danger than the ruine of your soul to do what in you lies to discharge it Ald. But our livelihood is in this totally concerned We that are Tradesmen should we be severe in the execution of the Laws against these persons we must of necessity be undone for we should lose a great part of our Custom Vic. Methinks your Worship is just like a person quite shipwracked you catch with such greediness at every little Planke and and Oar and I hope I have almost vanquished all your Arguments and Doubts and hewed down the main Pillars of the House you do so prop up your building with Poles and Faggot-sticks Do you not yet consider that the welfare of your soul is to be preferred before not only your Estate but your Life too What advantage is it that I may put to you our Saviour's Question to gain the whole World and to lose your own soul This is so precious a Jewel that it is not capable of barter or exchange All your torment for the gaining of an Estate here is only to make your Posterity rich and what benefit can you reap from their temporal welfare and prosperity Your body will lie rotting in a grave and that Vault will be too obscure and dark for you to see through and take a prospect of your Families splendour There cannot possibly be the least reflection from their honour and advancement here upon you when lodged in your bed of earth and crumbled into Dust and Vermine And then to have your Soul eternally miserable and to salute your body in fire and flames at the great and glorious Morning of the Resurrection because you have neglected your Obligations here both to God your King and his holy Church only to secure your present Possessions or to heap up Riches for future Generations this is relinquishing the highest Heaven for a poor contemptible spot of Earth Methinks Sir you should be better skilled in your own Trade than to exchange the Pearl of preat price for small contemptible and perishing Commodities to barter Diamonds for Bristol stones and with the Indians to to sell the finest Gold for a small piece of painted Glass If the severest Duties and strictest Obligations of most solemn Oaths may thus be dispensed with when Interest stands in competition with them we then certainly never yet understood our Religion nor is the Gospel of our Saviour the way to Heaven nor will the Gates of that glorious City be ever opened to the Practicers of Christianity For if we make a narrow search into those eternal Precepts of the great Author and Contriver of our Religion as well as Redeemer and Purchaser of our lives and ransom we shall find next to a belief in our Saviour that they consist in mortifying our Appetites Passions and Desires in withdrawing our Affections from too eager a pursuit of this World in a blessed contentation with our present Lot that turns Earth into Heaven and Paradise in a due and constant obedience to our Superiours a strict observation of our Promises and Vows and there must not be with us yea and nay 'T is a wonder to me that St. Peter should be blamed for denying his Master if any interest might dispense with duty or that the Primitive Martyrs had not been more wary than to burn their bodies when they were no acceptable Sacrifice Our Saviour I am sure was obedient to the death and has assured those of their unworthiness of himself or any of those advantages that he has brought to an ungrateful World if they love their Relations better than himself Believe it Sir God and Mammon Christ and Belial cannot both be served and obeyed and if you will obey the Commands of one you must not become a slave to the other I cannot but admire that a person of your Port and Gravity would once mention such an Objection as this that sets a Temporal Interest against a Spiritual advantage as if it were ponderous enough to encline the balance both of Faith and Reason Shall a great and solemn duty be neglected to which you are obliged by the bond of an Oath in which either your laziness or contempt execrates all your own felicity and abandons your everlasting bliss only for the Pelf and glittering Dust of a ruinous and tottering World This is making a God of Mammon prostration before the Golden Image and adoring a pitiful lump of clay But what should I argue thus with a Christian You are baptized and therefore have renounced the World as well as the Flesh and the Devil and therefore I hope this Objection started from you through weakness and inadvertency only and was not the effect of Judgment or Premeditation nor can you conjecture that Private Interest is of that concern with Almighty God as to be potent enough to release you from the least duty much less from the great and most strict Obligation of an Oath And yet that I may endeavour to obviate all Evasions even to those that may not have so deep and prevalent a sense of duty You know by reason of my Residence and Function in this Town I am acquainted with almost all sorts of Tradesmen Ald. I know you are Vic. They tell me then that indulgence of the Justices to Fanaticks does not at all encrease their Custome or support their Trade nor will any Obligation engage those men to buy any where but there where they may have the best bargain And that which enclines me to a belief of this is that prodigious covetousness and Jewish griping that I have observed in the most of them as if it were riveted in their very Religion for they pretend abstinence to save the expenses of hospitality and good neighbourhood and so become in their way religious only that they may save charges Nor can I at all wonder at these mens avarice as long as they have so much of pride and humour to maintain So that as your interest and livelihood were it concerned is not enough to weigh down your duty and Oath even that cannot be much damnified by your Justice and Severity to those persons For somewhere or other they must buy and if your goods be most merchantable and best cheap you will not fail of these Customers If not all the art and skill that you have all the favour and kindness you can shew them shall never be arguments prevalent enough to draw them into your noose and snare For there are no persons under the Canopy of Heaven that are better skill'd in the arts and tricks of cheat and cousenage than themselves and therefore will easily discern the little wiles that you lay for them Ald.